UN
Took $930M From Saudi Now
Exclude Inner City Press From
Counter Terrorism Briefing
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
June 18 – How corrupt is the
UN? Well, it took most of its
counter-terrorism money from
Saudi Arabia, just as
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres smiled and took a
$930 million check from
Saudi's Crown Prince and said
nothing about Saudi bombing of
Yemen, and now assault on the
port of Hodeidah there.
On June 18 the UN in New York
held a so-called background
briefing for only some of the
media which cover the UN day
to day.
Excluded
from the background briefing
unlike some media who rarely
if every report on the issue
was Inner City Press, which
has criticized Guterres for
his silence in taking the
Saudi check, and which remains
restricted for covering the
bribery of the UN by Ng Lap
Seng and South South News -
which has placed people not
only in UNTV but even in UN
Department of Public
Information - and now by
Patrick Ho and the China
Energy Fund Committee.
Other than more targeted
censorship, the only rationale
for excluding Inner City Press
which was one of only five
media - including one which
also works for UN Photo -
covering the Small Arms and
Light Weapons press conference
on June 18, is that it is no
longer a “resident
correspondent.”
This is due
to Guterres' spokesman
Stephane Dujarric, who evicted
Inner City Press from the UN
Press Briefing Room and from
its office, and from DPI's
Alison Smale, who still has no
content neutral rule while
putting in Inner City Press'
office a no-show Egypt state
media Akhbar al Yom. Smale has
her husband playing piano at a
World Cup event sponsored by
the Russian Mission - this is
today's UN. We continue to
believe that briefer USG
Vladimir Ivanovich Voronkov
was simply unaware this time
of the censorship underlying
his briefing (of Michèle
Coninsx we are less sure).
We'll have more on this.
***
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