On Fox News, Assad Tells Kucinich 15,000 Syrian Soldiers Killed, 85% of Rebels Jihadists, Charlie Rose Left in Dust

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 18 -- It was surreal, when Dennis Kucinich for Fox News interviewed Syria's President Bashar al Assad. His questions got Assad to say that 15,000 government soldiers have been killed, and to estimate that now 80 to 90 percent of rebels are jihadists. Did Charlie Rose get that?

Fox, so often skeptical of the UN, had its reporter Greg Palkot asking questions as if any UN report is credible. It was as if Oil for Food, and more recently the UN's self-exoneration of bringing cholera to Haiti, never happened.

In the introduction it was argued that Kucinich was not there as a Fox journalist. But he asked the first questions, better than Charlie Rose did. He pushed Assad to acknowledge that Syria has chemical weapons. He brought up Gaddafi, if only by reference, a virtual sub-tweet.

Then Greg Palkot, whose presence in Syria Inner City Press tweet-covered back on Sunday, got into the specifics of a Chapter 7 resolution at the UN. Assad said, that is up to the great powers. He was focused on the OPCW process, saying it might take up to a year. But he said he would provide all the information. Others are sure to agree. But to what end? Watch this site.

   

At UN on Qatar GA Draft, Syria Note Verbale Slams OP 25, Welcoming Rebels, Contesting Seat

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 3 -- On April 30, Inner City Press published the Fourth Revision of the Qatari draft General Assembly resolution on Syria, as an exclusive, here.

  Since then, Qatar and other sponsors have held a meeting at the French Mission to the UN, Inner City Press has learned, trying to decide whether to do a Fifth Revision or simply go to the vote on what they have. 

  The reported indecision of envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to quit or not, or to quit now or at the end of May, adds to the uncertainty.

  Now, Syria's Mission to the UN has circulated a "Note Verbale" to all UN members, arguing why they should vote "no" on the draft resolution, if and when it is introduced in the General Assembly.

  The Note Verbale, which Inner City Press immediately put online here as an update to its Rev 4 story (and is sure to appear elsewhere soon), take specific issued with Operative Paragraph 25 which welcomes the "National Coalition."

Syria disputes this, and the decision from which Algeria and Iraq have taken reservations, and Lebanon disassociated itself.

Brahimi's testimony and other studies, of foreign jihadists in Syria, are cited. The Note concludes, in bold, that even as revised the draft is a step toward contesting who should hold Syria's seat at the UN. Countries are asking themselves, what precedent would that set? Watch this site.

On DRC, Drones and Death Penalty, France Has Benin Answer for It, AFP for Ladsous

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 10 -- Where is the line between the judicially ordered death penalty and the quasi- or pseudo-judicial process now associated with anti-terrorist drone strikes by the US and other countries?

  Inner City Press put the question to three UN ambassadors, including Gerard Araud of France which is engaged in such an anti-terrorist or anti-Jihadist fight in Mali, as well as to two representatives of Amnesty International.

  Amnesty's report on the death penalty, under embargo until today, mentions at page 23 the “increased number of extrajudicial executions” in North Korea. 

  Inner City Press cited this, and asked AI about Obama's drones strikes, and Ambassador Araud about France's strikes in Mali.

At first, Araud let the Ambassador of Benin answer for France about Mali. After his answer -- and after another question was asked by another journalist, Araud to his credit re-took the microphone to answer.

He said strikes in Mali are not through the judicial process, and follow the laws of war. But isn't that was Obama, and Bush before him, have said?

How can one be against execution through a judicial process, but for death from the sky with much less due process? That is the question.

Amnesty International stated a position of principle, not unlike that of D-G Shetty on not arming the rebels in Syria: AI is always against the death penalty, and calls Obama's recent moves only a “patina.”

  On the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country with a truly abysmal justice system, if the failure to prosecute those in the two battalions involved in the mass rape of 126 women and in November in late November 2012 is any guide, Inner City Press asked if the UN peacekeeping mission there should be doing more, and if any of the Ambassador could state anything DRC has done about the rapes.

  Again it was Benin's Ambassador who answered, and interestingly. But what about Araud? France not only claims “the pen” in the Security Council on the DRC -- the head of Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, is the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold the post.

  Ladsous claimed to have given an ultimatum to the DRC government, then let the deadline pass without disclosing any action taken. He has refused to answer since. Araud make a point of answering on Mali -- appreciated -- but did not on the DRC. Watch this site.

Footnote: Relatedly, Agence France Presse's Tim Witcher asking a soft ball question in French. On the Minova rapes and other Peacekeeping spin, he had been the pass-through for Ladsous' half answers to question Ladsous refuses to answer from Inner City Press.

But now a new low has been hit, alongside the UN's non-consensual raid of Inner City Press' office and the leaking of photographs of its desk and bookshelf to BuzzFeed. Witcher filed a complaint on March 8 with UN Security beginning with a question Inner City Press asked Ladsous (about the Minova rapes) and how it was asked. 

  Who does Witcher represent? AFP has been asked, in light of Witcher's March 8 false complaint for Ladsous, who has served on an AFP management board, and we are waiting for a response. Watch this site.