On Syria, Ban Ki-moon Dodges, Echo Chamber Results, Reuters Charade of Free Press, UNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNdisclosed Location, March 21 -- To make his Syria chemical weapons probe announcement Thursday morning, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon summoned scribes to his 38^th floor office to serve as extras in the film.

  Ban did not take or at least answer any questions. At the end he said, “for any detailed matters,” to ask his spokesman Martin Nesirky.

  But at Thursday's noon briefing, at which all but one question was about Syria (and none at all about Africa, 70% of the UN's work), Nesirky offered few answers.

  Nesirky said to ask the French and UK Missions to the UN what their letter says. As if to excuse the lack of clarity on the scope of the investigation Ban says he is preparing, Nesirky noted that this is fast, by UN standards.

  That is true: for example in Sri Lanka in 2009, the UN actively covered up casualty figures until they were leaked to Inner City Press. Then the UN said they are about saving people, not counting them.

  Nesirky was asked if Lakhdar Brahimi would be negotiating the scope and access with Syria. No, he said, that would be done by the relevant officials in Disarmament. Does that meanGermany's Angela Kane?

  The questioning got repetitive. Even Nesirky said it was like “an echo chamber” when one UN Correspondents Association board member after another, An-Nahar to Daily Dawn of Pakistan, asked identical questions.

  A question about the possible use of depleted uranium was sidestepped, as was looking into whether chemical weapons could have come from Libya, through Lebanon.

  Reuters' bureau chief Louis Charbonneau, channeling the UK and French letter, talked right over Nesirky, who used to work at Reuters. Nesirky appeared to push back, then answered and said, “I hope that's helpful.”

  Later, still helpful, UNCA and UN collaborated to cover themselves about a 3 pm event moved but still held in the UN, in a suddenly and cynically re-named “UNCA Square” festooned with fruits and ham and cheese.

  Cuba protested to Ban that UNCA would use the Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium. UNCA clearly agreed to move the event, emailing only its members at 9 am that it would be in “UNCA Square.”

   But then Charbonneau and others faux protested at noon, as if they hadn't agreed. UNCA's “Office,” which sent out the new notice, and then claimed that the move was just to make it “more casual.” It's a big charade: the UN's Censorship Alliance. Watch this site.

On Chemical Weapons in Syria, UN Dysfunction: of Cuba, UNCA & Reuters' Iranian Scalps

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNdisclosed Location, March 20 -- The dysfunction and division in the UN are for all to see, even on TV.

  Wednesday morning at the Security Council stakeout, Syrian Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari announcedhis county had requested “a few minutes ago” that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon send a specialized, independent and neutral technical mission to look into the use of chemical weapons, he said by the opposition.

  In his twelve minute stakeout, the only questioner -- in Arabic -- is one viewed as pro-Assad. No one else came, or asked.

  At the day's noon briefing, Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky said he had just briefed Ban on what Ja'afari said at the stakeout. Then when and how did Syria make the request “a few minutes ago” to which Ja'afari referred?

  The questions Nesirky got, or took, were all slanted the other way, to the extent of asking if ANY use of chemical weapons in Syria, even by the opposition, would be the government's fault.

  The questioners came from Al-Arabiya, An-Nahar and Turkish media, all three on the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association, increasingly known at the UN's Censorship Alliance.

On March 18 UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS was present at the non-consensual search of Inner City Press' office, taking pictures. She has not responded to questions, including from a UK journalist who is also skeptical of Syrian armed groups, who asked her about it.

  As fate would have it, Cuba this week filed a complaint with Ban Ki-moon against not only UNCA but Falk personally. Asnoted, those on UNCA's Executive Committee -- perhaps with the silence disagreement of Mr Gu of Xinhua -- will try to take the criticism by Cuba as a badge of honor. 

  UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau has festooned the door to Reuters UN office -- decidedly NOT raided by this UN -- with documents showing how angry Reuters has made Iran. Scalps not scoops: this is Reuters at the UN.

   This is dysfunction, this is the UN's Censorship Alliance -- and circus of decay. Watch this site.

Footnote: It was also notable -- literally, footnoteable -- that at Wednesday's post-raid noon briefing, there were no questions about Africa, where 70% of the UN's work is. 

  And UN Peacekeeping, which under Herve Ladsous covers up rapes by his partners, uses peacekeepers to pursue French goals in Cote d'Ivoire and prospectively Mali, and has highly selective vision in the two Sudans, likes it that way -- no questions about this African empire...

Behind UN Raid on Press Office Are UN Censorship Alliance Leaders, Named Here

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 18 -- Behind the UN raid on Inner City Press' office on Monday (photo, video), beyond the UN officials who entered, search and photographed the Press office without any notice or consent are those who created the atmosphere: the UN's Censorship Alliance, which continues to call itself the UN Correspondents Association.

  Freedom of Information Act documents obtained from Voice of America show that it was UNCA that “met with UN officials (very quietly)” in 2012 to try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, then and now UNCA's First Vice President, has refused to state his role in this meetings (audio here), as has UN official Stephane Dujarric.

Dujarric, two days before the raid by his Media Accreditation unit, dismissed Inner City Press' renewed request for due process rules and protections.

But who leads this UN Censorship Alliance, whose president Pamela Falk of CBS took photographs of the raid on Inner City Press' office?

On the Executive Committee of the UN's Censorship Alliance are:

Masood Haider of Pakistan's Daily Dawn, who voted repeatedly in 2012 to get Inner City Press thrown out;

Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse, who asked UNCA to act against Inner City Press about an article it publishedabout Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping, then supported Voice of America's exposed request to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, then filed his own false complaint about a March 8 verbal encounter which he initiated by cutting into a conversation to hiss about “lies and distortions;”

Denis Fitzgerald of Saudi Press Agency, who in connection with false allegations that Inner City Press must be funded by the terrorist Tamil Tigers because it asked questions about Sri Lanka, browbeat Inner City Press and offered to serve on a panel to judge it;

Barbara Plett of BBC, who voted to expel the press, asking Inner City Press why it had published a photograph of the French Ambassador, and why it reported that UNCA's president had rented one of his apartment to Sri Lanka's ambassador, when he was a UN official, before UNCA without asking the opinion of the whole board screened Sri Lanka's war crimes denial film in the UN;

Sylviane Zehil of L'Orient le Jour, who went shown news articles from government press in Sri Lanka saying Inner City Press should be jailed for what it had written, and related anonymous death threats triggered by the UNCA proceeding, said “that is not my problem;”

Ban Ki-moon'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

Bouchra Benyoussef of Maghreb Arab Press, who voted against Inner City Press every time and, once seeing Inner City Press rushing to try to ask a question of a Moroccan official at a UN stakeout, gestured that the microphone should be turned off, the stakeout ended;

Zhenqiu Gu of Xinhua, who voted every time against Inner City Press, told Inner City Press that it did not respect authority enough and placed his Xinhua underling Bill Reilly as the chair of the panel to judge Inner City Press, despite conflict of interest;

Ali Barada of An-Nahar, who filed his own false complaint against Inner City Press (deemed even by UN authorities to be “bogus”) and served on panel to judge Inner City Press but refused to respond to legal requests to see “evidence” alluded to;

Kahraman Halicelik of Turkish Radio & TV who claimed he would drop off the board if UNCA tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN-- then when that was proved, under FOIA, didn't leave, and remains on the board;

Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, who filed a stealth complaint in 2012, had Reuters support Voice of America's move to thrown Inner City Press out of the UN (according to VOA documents), and on February 22 told Inner City Press, “the fundamental problem is your website” (his colleague Michelle Nichols joined in Witcher of AFP's false February 22 complaint); and

Pamela Falk of CBS, who screamed at Inner City Press on February 22 “mugger” and “you call yourself a journalist” and “just don't write about me,” before taking pictures of the raid on Inner City Press' office on March 19. UN Censorship Alliance indeed. Watch this site.

On DRC & Sudan, After Ban Ki-moon Spoke to UNCA's 13 Opaque Apostles, No Transcript?

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, February 9 – The day after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky refused to provide any transcript of Ban's February 7 session with 13 members of the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee, one of member was asked by FUNCA to release his tape to all reporters accredited at the UN.

  Nesirky acknowledged that beyond the four-paragraph, three issue highlights belated provided to reporters beyond the UNCA 13, Ban spoke about the Democratic Republic of Congo and about Sudan. But neither was in the highlights.

  The omission or withholding of DRC information echoes the UN's January 25 doling out of anonymous quotes essentially declaring war in the Congo with a "peace enforcement" batallion that those media running the quotes said would be approved that weekend in Addis Ababa.

   That did not happen, but there were no corrections, no accountability.

   What did Ban say this time on DRC?

  But Nesirky replied, “no, we will not provide a full transcript. Part of the conversation was on the record, part of the conversation was off the record.”

   This implies that Ban and/or Nesirky only trusts these UNCA Thirteen to abide by off the record requests.

   But are these 13, the apostles of opacity, the only ones who could be trusted? And should they be trusted?

   As noted, Inner City Press had rushed to the day's noon briefing, to ask the transcript question on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access, arriving just at noon from an 11 am off the record briefing at a Security Council's member's mission

There, and subsequently on an anonymous social media account involving UNCA Executive Committee members and in a flyer posted on the door of Inner City Press' cubicle at the UN, a woman who before the off the record briefing alleged past sexual harassment was mocked, with involvement of at least some of the 13.

   We add “some of,” because UNCA Executive Committee member Denis Fitzgerald wrote it to state that he was not at briefing at the mission and is not “part of a fake social media account.” His statement was added less then 20 minutes after he sent it.

 Fitzgerald was in the UN Photo of the 13 with Ban, re-tweeted by UNCA President Pamela Falk.

Ban Ki-moon'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

 Others in the photo who WERE at the referenced mission's off the record briefing included Louis Charbonneau of Reuters; Tim Witcher of AFP; Ali Barada of An-Nahar; Kahraman Halicelik of Turkish Radio & TV; and Masood Haider of Dawn, as well as several members of the board of UNCA's affiliate the Dag Hammarskjold Fund for Journalism.

   After Fitzgerald's statement was added, less than 20 minutes after he sent it, Fitzgerald was directly asked, by the Free UN Coalition for Access, three questions including to “release any and all recordings of the February 7 session with Ban Ki-moon to all reporters accredited at the UN.”

  We believe the request is fair for the following reasons:

  While Fitzgerald is employed by the Saudi Press Agency and also maintains a small blog named UN Tribune (the last post on which is an uncritical transcription of the UN Peacekeeping chief on drones), it is clear he was only at the Ban Ki-moon February 7 briefing because he is an UNCA Executive Committee member.

  Of all reporters covering the UN, only the 15 UNCA Executive Committee member were invited. Thirteen went.

  The UNCA Executive Committee purports to represent and serve at least the other UNCA members, if clearly not the resident correspondents who are not members of UNCA, nor the vast majority of other reporters who cover and even enter the UN.

  But the UNCA Executive Committee members did not distribute the information they obtained even to other UNCA members. Now the request has been formally made – and the response, disingenuous, is only, Who is FUNCA? Who indeed.

  The UNCA Executive Committee not only communicates through an anonymous social media account and counterfeit FUNCA flyers and grafitti – they often send out e-mail messages signed only “UNCA Office.”

 When one checks that out one finds an individual, employed and paid by whom it is not clear, but with a “P” journalist's pass from the UN.

  In the parlance of the UN Accreditation Guidelines, on which we will soon have more to say, is UNCA a “bona fide media organization”? Watch this site.

After Censorship, UNCA Turn Out Down 14%, Reuters VP Down 30%, Delay Opposed by FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 11 -- The decay of the UN Correspondents Association has been confirmed in the low turn out of in the organization's largely fixed elections, held January 8-10.

   Despite UNCA's claim to have 200-some members, even last year only 102 people cast ballots. 

   But this time, after a year in which the UNCA Executive Committee spent most of its meetings trying to expel thendis-accredit Inner City Press, turn-out fell 14%, to a mere 88 votes cast.

   This decline took place despite the UNCA Executive Committee violating the UNCA Constitution by pushing the election past the December 15 deadline and into January, allegedly to get more candidates and more turn-out. Video here.

    In a tell-tale sign of UNCA's decay, there was no competition for the top six positions. 

   Nevertheless, running unopposed, First Vice President Louis Charbonneau of Reuters got votes from only 55 of the 88 people casting ballots. His vote count fell 30% from the previous year, more than double UNCA's overall 14% decline in turnout.

   Getting less than two-thirds of the votes in a race with no opponent at all is not only not a mandate: it is message that it is over. Here are the results in January 2013 for the unopposed six, and the vote count they [or their predecessor] got previously in December, 2011:

1/13   12/11

65      [85]   President: Pamela Falk, CBS News TV & Radio

55        79   First Vice President: Louis Charbonneau, Reuters;

60        71   2nd VP: Masood Haider, Dawn;

56        62    3rd VP: Sylviane Zehil, L'Orient le Jour;

55       [71]  Treasurer: Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press;

67         81   Secretary: Barbara Plett, BBC.

   This is decay. Here are the vote counts for the nine "at large" positions on the UNCA Executive Committee:

39 - Nizar Abboub, Al-Akhbar Lebanon
47 - Nabil Abi Saab, Alhurra TV
45 - Talal Al-Haj, Al Arabiya News Channel
42 - Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24
39 - Courtney Brooks, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
47 - Denis Fitzgerald, Saudi Press Agency
37- Mercedes Gallego, Vocento
44 - Zhenqiu GU, Xinhua News Agency
41 - Kahraman Halicelik, Turkish Radio & TV (TRT)
55 - Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio-Canada
33 - Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor
52 - Yasuomi Sawa, Kyodo News
57 - Tim Witcher, Agence-France-Presse

  This last, from AFP, began in September 2011 to ask for UNCA "action" against Inner City Press for its reporting on Herve Ladsous being named the fourth Frenchman in a row to the top post in UN Peacekeeping.

  In June of 2012 Witcher told the outgoing / gone Treasurer, Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, that AFP would join VOA in writing to the UN to get Inner City Press dis-accredited. Charbonneau said "his people" at Reuters would do the same.

  As twice noted, the new President has not said a word on the topics of censorship, or the need for conflict of interest rules for the UNCA Executive Committee. 

   Now on January 11, the UN has announced that not only will media space at the UN be reduced by 40%, but the move back to the renovated building is being delayed until April. 

  All UN phone lines that media have used, in the case of Inner City Press to call back the UN Peacekeeping missions and whistleblowers in the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire and Haiti, are being eliminated.

   And what has UNCA said about it? NOTHING. This is decay. The Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA, has already written to the UN to protest both moves:

-Please provide an explanation of the further delay to April of the move back to the renovated building.

-FUNCA objects to the elimination of the UN phone lines, which as noted prove useful in covering UN Peacekeeping missions in the DRCongo, Cote d'Ivoire and Haiti.  Now it is unilaterally announced that the lines and long-used telephone numbers are gone. FUNCA asks for an explanation, and objects.

-Finally, for now (this supplements FUNCA's previous "feedback" letter), this is a request that the "final" floor plans be sent be e-mail, as the earlier ones were. If it was thought that e-mail of the scanned plans was the best way to make correspondents aware of the draft plans, why not the final plans?

Watch this site.