Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

As Microsoft Speaks In UNSC, Crosses Out YouTube & Facebook, Corporate UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 -- The question of corporate influence and even bribery in the UN is one that has to be asked, as on May 11 Microsoft is given a chair to speak in the UN Security Council. Speech here.

This questioning is needed in light of the unfolding bribery scandal involving not only former President of the General Assembly John Ashe but also the Secretariat of Ban Ki-moon, from the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management selling document changes to the Department of Public Information doing no due diligence of those sponsoring events with Ban and even the UN's slavery memorial, see OIOS audit Paragraphs 37-40 and 20(b). And see DPI's eviction, video here.

Microsoft VP Steven A. Crown in his speech crossed out the names of competitors, Google's YouTube and Facebook, replacing them with "the Internet." How much is a chair in the Security Council worth?

The topic of counter-terrorism is, undoubtedly, a serious one, and we'll cover it in a separate article. Here are two paragraphs, in fairness, of the UNSC President Statement adopted:

“The Security Council notes with concern that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Da’esh), Al-Qaida, and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities, craft distorted narratives that are based on the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of religion to justify violence, which are utilized to recruit supporters and Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs), mobilize resources, and garner support from sympathizers, in particular by exploiting information and communications technologies, including through the Internet and social media...

   “The Security Council, accordingly, requests the Counter-Terrorism Committee, in close consultations with the CTED and other relevant United Nations bodies and international and regional organizations in particular the CTITF office, as well as interested Member States, to present a proposal to the Security Council by 30 April 2017 for a 'comprehensive international framework,' with recommended guidelines and good practices to effectively counter, in compliance with international law, the ways that ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities use their narratives to encourage, motivate, and recruit others to commit terrorist acts, including with a counter narrative campaign...”

Back on March 28, the corporate UN question also arose in connection with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdictions.

   A press conference on the topic was held at the beginning of a round of talks. Inner City Press asked, what will be the role and influence of corporate interests in these talks in the UN?

Currently Macau-based businessman is under house arrest indicted for allegedly paying bribes in the UN, including through South South News, which funded the UN Correspondents Association which then gave Ng a photo op with Ban Ki-moon.

The answer from the podium on March 28 was that business interests, as a "part of civil society," can speak. (The Pew representative seems about to answer, but it didn't happen. We would welcome a Pew response on this.)

The Ng Lap Seng - South South News tale, like that of Sheri Yan and her Global Sustainability Foundation (which until South South News, Ban assigned to OIOS for a self-audit), shows that at the UN, corporate interests can even be behind the NGOs or Association, even purported journalists' organizations.

Tellingly, even on UNCLOS the first question was taken by UNCA, by a representative who was pre-positioned for, filmed and laughed out Inner City Press' physical ouster by UN Security on the orders of DPI's Cristina Gallach on February 19. This is how the UN works, or doesn't. We'll be following this UNCLOS process - including corporate influence.

Note that previously, before so digging into UN corruption, Inner City Press covered similar Pew events, like here, without having to question the corporate capture of Ban's UN, and its descent into censorship.

As Inner City Press was staking out the UN Security Council meeting on March 24 about Western Sahara and Morocco's ordering out of the UN Peacekeeping mission there, a figure rarely seen at the stakeout approached.

Giampaolo Pioli the head of the UN Correspondents Association came over to where Inner City Press was typing and editing audio and video and said, “You're an asshole.”

   Moments later, Inner City Press now with its UN accreditation pass downgraded to Non-Resident Correspondent by UN Department of Public Information chief Cristina Gallach at the behest of Pioli went to ask UN Security not to lock the glass door to the Security Council before the Council's president spoke at the stakeout.

As Inner City Press asked the guard not to lock the door to journalists, UNCA's Pioli again said, “You're an asshole. I'm telling you that you're an asshole. Quote me.” Audio here.

   What's behind this? How did a journalists club turn into a club against a journalist, and why? Beyond Pioli's financial relationship with Palitha Kohona, who as Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN Pioli unilaterally granted a "UN" screening of a war crimes denial film, there is for example the matter of South South News.

South South News is depicted in the October 2015 criminal complaint against John Ashe, Ng Lap Seng, Frank Lorenzo and others as a vehicle for bribery, to the tune of $12 million.

UNCA under Pioli took SSN's money, and gave its funding Ng Lap Sent a photo op with Ban Ki-moon. But Pioli's UNCA also gave South South News a "journalism award," and SSN in term featured videos of Pioli, here - and of Pioli's tenant Kohona, here.

Pioli and his rental of one of his apartments to an accused war criminal, involved in Sri Lanka's notorious White Flag killings, then screening of his tenant's film, played a key role.

But there have been many enablers, among the Gulf and Western media on UNCA's board; there are been others to the very top of the UN who have benefited from and left unchecked this war on investigative journalism.

This as Pioli's UNCA took money from now-indicted Ng Lap Seng's South South News, gave SSN a journalism award and Ng a photo op with Ban Ki-moon. After after the indictments, Pioli was selling half-tables with Ban for $6,000 on Wall Street in December 2015. That Ban's UN tries to shield this from coverage is telling.

To try to oust or wipe out coverage of failure in Sri Lanka and more recently Burundi and Yemen to name but two is, of course, convenient, as well as stopping or hindering aggressive coverage of the expanding UN scandal in this waning year.

Inner City Press spoke and speaks out when Reuters took stories without credit, even claimed "exclusives" for things earlier published by Inner City Press. Reuters bureau chief made an anti-Press filing with the UN's Stephane Dujarric. Then when it was leaked, he wrote as Reuters to Google to get it blocked from Search, ostensibly as copyrighted. "His" reporter has been worse, in ways.

   Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, who after being exposed in 2012 and her bosses saying in writing their attempt to oust Inner City Press for her was wrong -- is at it again. She was standing pre-positioned at the UN gate on February 19, 2016 when Inner City Press was physically thrown out. These are tax dollars at work, violating the First Amendment.

There are more - former AFP, the current ones hardly better - and others who just follow along. Now their "leader" Pioli has come to the stakeout, not to report anything - he rarely does - but to loudly call a critic, who actually writes stories, an "asshole." And not one of them did anything. At the UN the journalists' club has become a club against a journalist.

Inner City Press replied that it believed and believes Pioli is corrupt, that he took rent money from Palitha Kohona then unilaterally granted Kohona's request as Sri Lanka's Ambassador for an UNCA / “UN” screening of his government's war crimes denial film, “Lies Agreed To.” And that Pioli after demanding censorship of Inner City Press' coverage has used UNCA and now DPI to try to throw Inner City Press out of the UN, just as Pioli first threatened.

Ban with Pioli, who told Inner City Press, "You are an asshole." Credit UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Another UNCA board member -- Inner City Press quit its elected position on that board in 2012, saying openly that Pioli was corrupt, now in taking money from indicted Ng Lap Seng's South South News and granting him a photo op with Ban Ki-moon -- said such language should not be used at the stakeout.

But it was Pioli who approached Inner City Press, which hasn't willingly spoke with Pioli in more than a year.

So it is for this person that Cristina Gallach first ordered Inner City Press out of the UN on two hours notice on February 19 and on whom she has since leaned in trying to defend her February 19 decision, which was reached without once speaking with Inner City Press.

Ban shakes with Cristina Gallach, who threw ICP out of UN on Feb 19, 2016 on 2 hours notice. Credit UN Photo

Her rationale was that Inner City Press secretly filmed a closed meeting, but that doesn't stand up: the meeting was nowhere listed as closed, and Inner City Press openly live-streamed and even live Tweeted it: hardly secret.

So the fallback argument was that since Inner City Press covered the UNCA event in the UN Press Briefing Room from one of the glassed-in interpreters' booths, in order to avoid just such a response as Pioli's “asshole” on March 24, it had violated some as-yet unproduced rule about not being in an interpreters booth.

But on March 23 Inner City Press observed and filmed two non-interpreters in the “other” interpreters booth in the UN Press Briefing Room while UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq read out statements and did NOTHING about the use of the interpreters booth.

On March 24, Inner City Press asked Haq about it, UN Transcript.

On his way out of the UN Press Briefing Room, Haq said to Inner City Press, “Liar.” This is the atmosphere created, when DPI and the Spokesperson's office have allowed a character like Pioli, angry at coverage of his financial dealings with Sri Lanka's ambassador, to essentially run the asylum.

   It seems clear now that there must be a complete reversal of Gallach's February 19 order, based on false facts (closed meeting, “secret” filming), a dubious rule and at the behest of an UNCA boss who barely writes articles, seeks to control UN office space and comes to the UN Security Council stakeout to call a critic an asshole. We'll have more on this.

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Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.