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  • UN Says And Shows It Won't Cover Stories Countries Don't Like, Criti

    UN SAYS AND SHOWS IT WON'T COVER STORIES COUNTRIES DON'T LIKE, CRITICS TARGETED

    Inner City Press
    http://www.innercitypress.com/unrules1media070109 .html
    July 1, 2009

    Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

    UNITED NATIONS, July 1 -- The UN runs its own News Service, its
    own Video and Radio operations. The chief of these divisions, Ahmad
    Fawzi, was asked on July 1 what the UN does on the story if "a country
    regards it as not a good story."

    "We don't do it," Mr. Fawzi. The audience at the UN-TV showcase, mostly
    comprised of UN staff members, laughed. Inner City Press followed up,
    asking if the UN would cover news events that trigger criticism of
    the UN, like the slaughters in Rwanda or Srebrenica.

    Fawzi replied that the UN commissioned a report on the failures of
    its member states and peacekeeping operation in Srebrenica. He added,
    "Are we going to produce a video about it? I don't know."

    Inner City Press has previously interviewed Mr. Fawzi's colleague
    Susan Farkas, now the head of UN TV and Radio and present at the July
    1 screening, who told the Press, "I find it astonishing that you think
    there's a story in the fact that we don't investigate the UN... The
    UN pays us. The UN pays us to produce a program which promotes the
    issues that the UN cares about."

    Thus, the first of the videos shown on July 1 concerned children
    left behind in Moldova as their parents migrate for jobs. The second
    concerned the genocide in Rwanda, but merely mentioned without
    explaining that prior to the upsurge in killing, nearly all UN
    personnel left.

    It certainly did not mention the UN Development Program staffer who
    used UN equipment to round up and target Tutsis to be killed. That is
    not the only story, but it is part of the story. And a stoytelling
    that is precluded from the beginning from including all pertinent
    facts cannot be called independent.

    Inner City Press asked Fawzi about the UN News Service, which churns
    out relentlessly pro-UN stories, ranging from Ban Ki-moon's popularity
    to the UN's successes in the Congo. Appearing to take the question
    to be about the UN's press release service, Fawzi said "we cover what
    happens in the building [but] it is not gloss, it is not promotional,
    it tells what goes on in the House."

    But UN News Service covers nearly every statement by UN agency,
    never quotes a critic or even raises a question. It is not unlike the
    state news agencies of some member countries. And any member state,
    it appears, can get a story removed from the Service. A story on
    Nagorno Karabakh, for example, fell under criticism and was quietly
    taken down. So too a story about Sri Lanka from the affiliated --
    but ostensibly even more independent -- UN humanitarian Relief Web
    news service.

    While in the previous interview Ms. Farkas went on to ask, "Do you
    work for the Heritage Foundation," on July 1 Fawzi said, "there are
    others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that
    with a very open mind and an open heart."

    It is not clear what "we" he was referring to. Consider a "Dear
    Colleague" letter circulated to the 435 members of the House of
    Representatives earlier this week, the text of which is below.

    In UN-TV, Fawzi (at right) monitors Ban Ki-moon's image

    "Angered by past and continuing media reports of corruption,
    mismanagement and inaction at the United Nations, the UN is again
    seeking to cover up evidence and stifle freedom of the press.

    Meeting on May 8 about 'reporting by the press,' high level UN
    officials discussed sending threatening letters to several press
    agencies and other bodies, as well as complaining to Google News
    about a small, independent news agency that has uncovered numerous UN
    scandals. Last year, a similar complaint resulted in that agency's
    temporary removal from Google News. In response to a question about
    that meeting, the Secretary General's spokeswoman furiously retorted,
    'I don't have to account to you for meetings I participate in.'
    The UN's Department of Management is also reportedly pushing to
    obstruct press coverage, seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to
    maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into
    open, un-walled offices -- deterring whistleblowers from coming forth
    and preventing oversight.

    These UN efforts to restrict press freedom and oversight directly
    contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
    recognized that 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
    expression... and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
    through any media and regardless of frontiers.' Once again, the UN
    is actually undermining the principles on which it was founded."

    The May 8 meeting, involving Under Secretaries General Angela Kane
    (Management), Kiyo Akasaka (Public Information -- the boss of both
    Mr. Fawzi and Ms. Farkas) and Patricia O'Brien (Legal Affairs),
    as well as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's speech writer Michael
    Meyer and Spokesperson Michele Montas, was memorialized in a memo
    from Ms. Kane to Ban.

    Inner City Press was shown the memo, wrote and asked Ban's spokeswoman
    Michele Montas about it by email, along with the three USGs, none of
    whom has yet to explain how their participation is consistent not only
    with the First Amendment, which they say does not apply, but even to
    the cited Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    While it has previously been claimed to Inner City Press that the UN
    would not, for example, even consider seeking to have a publication
    removed from Google News, Ms. Kane's memo shows different. What
    was that again, that "there are others whose job it is to look at
    us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open
    heart"? Some do and some don't.

    Footnote: the "Dear Colleague" letter circulated on Capitol Hill states
    that the UN is "seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain
    office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open,
    un-walled offices -- deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and
    preventing oversight." Previously the Department of Public Information,
    where Mr. Fawzi works and which Mr. Akasaka heads, told UN journalist
    they would have the same walled free space during and after the fix-up
    on the UN building.

    Now that first $23,000 was demanded, then wall-less "whistlebelower
    free" zones have been offered, no explanation of the change has been
    offerer, nor how it is consistent with the statement that "there are
    others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that
    with a very open mind and an open heart." Watch this site.

    * * * UN E-mails Allege Plot to Deny Ban a Second Term, Trick for
    Supachai at UNCTAD?

    Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
    UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- Weeks after the filing with the UN
    investigative unit of emails showing a dirty tricks campaign by
    staffers of UN Conference on Trade and Development chief Supachai
    Panitchpakdi to get a second term, on Wednesday UN Secretary General
    Ban Ki-moon nevertheless announced he is supporting Supachai for
    another four years.

    Inner City Press, which exclusively reported the filing on June 22,
    asked Ban's spokesperson if Ban had considered its contents, and
    acknowledged any connection between them and the reappointment.

    The most explosive part of the emails, being published for the
    first time today by Inner City Press, are the arguments made in a
    May 8, 2009 email by Supachai's special adviser Kobsak Chutikul, that
    African and other countries were supporting Ivory Coast's former trade
    minister to deny Supachai from Thailand a second term in order to set
    a precedent to deny Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary General,
    due to "his perceived Western backers."

    Ban's spokesperson declined to comment on the filing, saying it is
    before the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. Video here from
    Minute 10:45. But senior Ban officials including Management chief
    Angela Kane and Ethics Officer Robert Benson have had the complaint
    since June 4. Meanwhile, the complainant has reportedly been demoted.

    Inner City Press asked Supachai if his UNCTAD has any whistleblower
    protection provisions. Yes we will follow those, Supachai answered. He
    claimed he "never campaigned," despite what the emails show his special
    adviser Kobsak Chutikul doing. He claimed he only "responded to some
    countries' remarks." Video here, from Minute 56:18.

    Given these statement, Inner City Press is today publishing some of
    the emails at issue, here.

    UN's Ban and UNCTAD's Supachai: a snub of latter hurts former?

    In a May 8, 2009 email marked Attachment E and headlined, "NAM Note
    Verbale," Chutikul wrote to three senior UNCTAD staff, including the
    subsequent complainant: "Gentlemen, please see attached NAM Note
    Verbale sent out to all NAM Missions today. In light of this new
    development, it is the assessment of Thai and some ASEAN Ambassadors
    that the picture has become clear -- UNCTAD SG post has become an
    innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bigger struggle... The
    goal seems to be to insist on geographical rotation of posts, and
    undermining the practice / tradition of two continuous terms, with
    the real target being the UN SG (and his perceived western backers)."

    This argument raises the issue, for some interviewed by Inner City
    Press so far: did Ban have something of a conflict of interest in
    overriding (after working to override and change) African Group
    resistance and giving Supachai a second term? In fact, that too is
    laid out in Supachai's special adviser's Mach 8 e-mail, referring
    to telling Team Ban "things like 'you are the real target' or 'you
    are next.'" The emails point to several other improprieties, and
    it is extraordinary that Team Ban wants or wanted to ignore them and
    simply reappoint Supachai.

    Following Chutikul's"all hands on deck" e-mail, the press was on
    to get Ban to announce his referral of Supachai's renomination to
    the General Assembly. A Chinese staff member conferred with Beijing,
    and that asked for evidence of which way Ban was leaning (Attachment
    G). Another UNCTAD staffer questioned why the African Group targeted
    the second term of Supachai and not Frenchman Pascal Lamy at the
    World Trade Organization -- "because he's white"? The e-mails are
    replete with racial references.

    Now what will happen? Watch this site.

    Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN
    Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

    Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

    Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

    Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

    Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka
    http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11 :33&out=32:56

    Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza

    Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

    Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger

    Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double
    standards

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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