After Beirut Bombings of Iran's Embassy, SNC Urges Iranian Change of Heart, Jarba's Sponsors Silent, Including on Libya Militia Killings

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 21 -- This is the story of two statements: one made, and one not made. After the bombing of Iran's embassy in Beirut, Ahmad Jarba's Turkey-based "Syrian Coalition" today issued a statement that:

"The Syrian Coalition condemns the twin blasts near the Iranian embassy south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, which killed and injured scores of civilians on Tuesday, November 19th. On behalf of the Syrian people, the Syrian Coalition extends its condolences to the people of Iran and hopes the government of Iran acknowledges the Syrian people’s daily suffering and reconsiders its unlimited support of the Assad Regime."

  Perhaps, just as France was bold to hold an event in September inside the UN and declare Jarba the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people, now Jarba is eschewing political correctness and hoping in a single sentence that the bomb attack will make Iran acknowledge something.

  But what if this SNC statement's logic were applied to other attacks, like Nine Eleven or the Westgate Mall in Kenya? Then, the denunciation would be near-immediate. So where are the statements from Jarba's sponsors, in Paris, Riyadh, Washington and elsewhere?

  Meanwhile, the UN Security Council never did issue a press statement on the killing of dozens of civilians in Libya by militias. On November 20 the New York Times published an editorial; but now the Security Council has gone on a retreat, sans Jordan. No statement. What statement does that make?

This stands in contrast to the Security Council's near-instant press statement when two French journalists were killed in Mali. What of dozens of civilians in Libya? What of the Responsibility to Protect, the theory cited to justify NATO air strikes?

  But  a journalist has been killed in Tripoli: Saleh Ayyad Hafyana of the Fassato News Agency. Will the UK, which holds the pen in the Council on Libya, call for a meeting?  Apparently not.

 Will the US, which drafted the Council's statement on the killing of two French journalists in Mali, draft one for the murdered journalist in Libya?  The Free UN Coalition for Access is asking this question, for even-handed treatment of journalists. 

  By contrast, the UN's Censorship Alliance (a/k/a UN Correspondents Association) hosted Jarba for a faux UN briefing in July, and tried again since then. What does their board, which did the inviting, think of this new Jarba linkage? Watch this site.

   

At UN, Obama Dodges Critique of Spying, Denial of Palestine Visa, Spins Syria, Delegates DRC and Africa to France

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 24 -- Before US President Barack Obama began his speech Tuesday in the UN General Assembly, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff devoted much of hers to denoucing US spying programs.

Obama may have foreseen that -- Rousseff canceled a planned meeting with him -- but barely mentioned it. Rather as his staff had predicted, in a pre-speech call Inner City Pressreviewed here, he focused on Syria, Iran and "the Middle East," meaning Palestine and Israel.

Even on that, the US for example has delayed or denied the visa of a State of Palestine First Secretary from coming to the GA, see Inner City Press story, here.

On Syria, Obama said that neither the US nor any other country should decide who will take over in Syria. One wonders if he says that to Saudi Arabia, which sponsored Syria rebel boss Ahmad al Jarba, poised for a back-doorfaux "UN briefing" hosted by a group of Gulf and Western journalists.

As predicted, Obama's speech was light on Africa. The mentions came near the end, of US support for France and then the African Union in Mali, chasing the Lord's Resistance Army in "East Africa," and bombing Libya -- with the fig leaf of a Security Council resolution, of course.

There was no mention of Sudan, which Obama and his adviser have said they care so much about. While Obama used "Rwanda" as a trope of genocide, along with Srebrenica, he did not mention the UN's one-sided approach in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- another country, like Mali and Ivory Coast, which the US has left to France.

  Obama cited Bahrain, calling it sectarian -- no mention of the 10 year sentence of US national Taqi Al Mayden. In the middle of his speech, the UN loud speaker in the UN Media Center, without enough seats or electrical outlets, pitched first a treaty signing by Russia's Sergey Lavrov, then a photo op of Ban Ki-moon and the State of Palestine's Abbas.

Later today Ban will also press the flesh with Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Obama said the US will take action to stop "mass atrocity" -- but it did not in Sri Lanka in 2009, and Obama did not mention the country. (As Inner City Press noted on Sunday, Samantha Power did, at the Social Good Summit.)

  After Obama, Turkey's president Gul zoned in on Syria, no mention of spying, nor of Rousseff's indirect criticism by contrast of Turkey's crackdown on Occupy Gezi in Taksim Square and elsewhere.

  Let the speech count begin: how many mentions of Syria? How many of the attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya? How few other mentions of Africa? How many mentions of the US' spying? Watch this site.

   

UK's William Hague Still Hot About Embassy in Iran, Cites Kenya Westgate Mall Attack But Not Mali or DRC - France Has 'Em

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 23 -- The attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi was the first issue raised by UK foreign minister William Hague when he spoke to the press on Monday. 

 And the first of three questions, from Sky News, was about Somalia. Hague said the UK is working for security there -- no word of the disputed oil contract by a former UK leader -- then took two questions on Iran.

  BBC Persian, also called on by Cathy Ashton, raised one; it was on reviving embassies between Tehran and London. A promised or alluded to stakeout by Iran's foreign minister Zarif did not, in fact, take place.

But sources tell Inner City Press that Zarif was not apologetic enough for Hague's taste about the assault on the UK embassy in Tehran, and that why Hague came out and raised it.

Hague did not raise or take questions on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Mali. These issue are left to colonial power France. And what does Hague say about Somaliland? We'll try to ask: he has another stakeout (and should address DRC and the Minova rapes at that time.) Watch this site.

   

NYT Samantha Power Profile Uses Ghost Tweets & Former Big Wigs, Scribes Schizo on Syria

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 23 -- As the 68th UN General Assembly begins, some try to write the script in advance, just as some big wigs have others write even their tweets for them. 

 These two trends come together this morning in a vacuous, unauthorized New York Times profile of US Ambassador Samantha Power, quickly re-distributed by those who cover her, ostensibly independently.

  The piece, not by Times UN correspondents Neil MacFarquhar nor his replacement Somini Sengupta but rather Sheryl Gay Stolberg, says half way through that Power "declined to be interviewed for this article." 

 
   Oh. There weren't enough diplomats at the General Debate who were willing or eager to be interviewed?

  Instead, the Times uses Power's Twitter account to profile her. There is only one problem: as Inner City Press reported yesterday from the Social Good Summit at the 92nd Street Y, Power couldn't say what her Twitter account handle is, and admitted that it is a US Mission to the UN staffer who read her @ replies and "briefs" her on them. (Some quickly defended or justified this; others didn't, including as a use of taxpayer money.)

From the UN Mission to the UN's transcript of the event:

MR. CASHMORE: What’s your handle?

AMBASSADOR POWER: What is my handle? I think #AmbassadorPower. Someone told me it’s #AmbassadorPower. (Laughter.) #AmbassadorPower?

  So a profile several times using this twitter account is dubious (as for example is CNN using a dubious Al Shabaab account to "report" the nationalities of Kanya's Westgate Mall attack -- which Power did not mention in her Q&A with Mashable on Sunday.)

  The Times collects fawning quotes. The "former UN Peacekeeping official" it uses, Ed Luck, has been gone for some time, but says urgently that Power is a "superstar" in his former venue. (He was also before he left a "Responsibility to Protect" official, part-time and unpaid because the office was not agreed to by the General Assembly.)

  None of this is to say that Power is not an interesting person -- but it is not because of her ghostwritten tweets or quotes from Ed Luck.

  Still, the Times snow-file was quickly re-tweeted by, for example, the 2013 president of the UN Correspondents Association Pamela Falk of CBS, complete with the handles of the US State Department as it to say: see? I am doing my job! 

  Under Falk, UNCA in July hosted a faux UN briefing by Saudi-sponsored Syria rebel box Ahmad al Jarba. Also re-tweeting was UNCA former big wig Margaret Besheer ofVoice of America, on whose Broadcasting Board of Governor sits John Kerry, also Power's boss.

UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters tweeted that "Syria's Assad slams Western powers on UN draft resolution;" but a scribe working for him wrote "Syria's Assad says not concerned about UN draft resolution" -- both based off the same interview (not with Reuters, but Chinese television: lost in translation?) 

  This is the UN and how it's covered; these are the scribe to which the UN and US Mission most like to give access. And no, Samantha Power was not interviewed for this article -- Inner City Press didn't ask. Watch this site.

   

US Ambassador Power with Mashable Is Mostly Syria, Nothing on Spying or Haiti Cholera, DRC or Censorship

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 22 -- When US Ambassador Samantha Power spoke Sunday at the Social Good Summit at the 92nd Street Y, one expected her to fill in the African holes in President Obama's speech and its run-up.

As Inner City Press reported on Friday, Obama adviser Ben Rhodes' summary of Obama's UN General Assembly speech had no Africa at all: just Syria, Israel-Palestine and Iran. Since so much of the UN's actual work is in Africa, that's where Power would come in, right?

  Not right. Friendly-interviewed for 20 minutes by Pete Cashmore of Mashable, Power's first three country-specific references were all to Syria. She is, as one wag put it, selling that soap. It's an important topic, sure. But there are other topics.

  Amazingly, Power didn't mention the deadly attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya, for which Al Shabaab has taken credit, yes, on Twitter. This is a UN issue: al Shabaab said the attack was for Kenya sending troops into Kismayo in Somalia, as part of the UN Security Council approved AMISOM mission.

  Beyond Syria, Power mentioned an anti-corruption program in India, then her advocacy to Cuba's foreign minister at a UN meeting. She didn't say: the meeting was on regional cooperation and many countries, especially from Latin America, criticized the US for the NSA's spying exposed by Edward Snowden. Another topic that did not come up.

  Power did mention Sri Lanka, saying that activists there say they like the UN Human Rights Council. She mentioned Zimbabwe twice, about really one incident: a Zimbabwean activist met with her earlier in the day, along with others from Egypt and Ukraine.

  She mentioned Haiti, how social media allowed people to know where others are buried. She did not mention: some of those buried were killed by cholera brought to Haiti by the UN. There will be a protest on that topic on September 26; information is available on the website of the Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info.

  Power did not off-hand know her Twitter handle, leading to question: who is tweeting for her? Upstairs in the "Social Media Lounge" -- beyond Mashable, the event was sponsored by UN-fan UN Foundation, with Southwest Airlines and, strangely, Caterpillar also listed among the "Presented By" on the agenda -- tweets of #2030Now and blogs were flying.

But the Democratic Republic of the Congo wasn't mentioned once. And for the UN Security Council's upcoming trip there, in which Ambassador Power will presumably participate, it is France which is allowed to pick and block how it is covered. THAT is the UN, that is censorship. And what will Ambassador Power do, about the DRC and Rwanda? About the UN's impunity for bringing cholera to Haiti? Watch this site.