NEW YORK, Feb 1 – As the UN moves on in 2026 to pick a new Secretary General, as its last one Antonio Guterres fails on Ukraine, Gaza and basic transparency, it is whispering about its financial woes to friendly media, while banning the Press that continues to expose corruption.
On February 1 the New York Times has published a piece about the UN budget that could easily have been written by UN News, a relentlessly pro-UN website run by Guterres' long time propagandist Melissa Fleming (who famously bragged "we own the science), of getting disfavored views taken by the big tech platform.
After a breathless letter from Guterres to member states, easy to get but presented as "obtained by the New York Times," a self-described "senior UN official" briefed the scribes of the UN Correspondents Association, which includes Xinhua and IRIB, an Iranian outlet that has published statements under torture as interviews. The official warned that the UN might have to leave NYC, and not hold its General Assembly high level week.
Maybe that would be good - Fleming and Guterres for example banned the critical press from the last UNGA week.
And see recent criticism of the UN by, for example, Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad (who US Ambassador Mike Waltz paradoxically recently tried to use to make the UN look functional, and promote his deck chairs on the Titanic, band aid on a cancer work - does he want more dues to mindless be paid? No comment).
The Times does not mention any criticism of the UN - rapes by UN peacekeepers, introducing cholera to Haiti, role in October 7, 2023 - beyond the catch-all phrase corruption.
Inner City Press, which reports daily on the UN as while banned, can verify: today's UN is corrupt.
It's all in a new book "United Nations Betrayals: From Election Stolen by Guterres to Bribes and Banning of the Press," by Matthew Russell Lee (who quickly discloses that he has been ousted and banned from the UN by Guterres, for his reporting).
A noted by New York Magazine on Lee's Maximum Maxwell book, at times here he uses the character Kurt Wheelock, who first appeared in his Predatory Bender.
The book begins with Guterres beating out female candidates for the UNSG post, after a murky year being paid by Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation. The book digs into the bid by the China Energy Fund Committee, convicted of UN bribery, for Gulbenkian's oil company. Readers can draw their own conclusion, including on the need for SG campaign finance disclosure in 2026.
Part of the book in italics delves into the UN Correspondents Association and its efforts to throw Lee out. They appear again in the afterword / novella, "Whacking Qaddafi," which was first mentioned in the New Yorker magazine's Talk of the Town piece about Lee. It addresses more countries: from India to Pakistan, Guinea to Guinea Bissau.
The main text addresses UN failures in Sri Lanka - including the UNCA connection - Cameroon, Western Sahara, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Gaza and elsewhere. UN Betrayals indeed - this should be the first of a series.
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