Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 31, updated -- The Press was asked to leave a UN meeting about Crimea including media freedom there. The Lithuanian mission which organized the meeting explained to Inner City Press this was for security, since one of the briefers cannot go to Crimea. But any UN member state could enter.

Update: one Council member which refused to attend was Russia. After being told to leave the meeting, by Lithuania, Inner City Press was subsequently provided with a statement by the Russian Mission, in Russian, now robo-translated thus:

  But again, shouldn't the meeting by open to the press and public, especially since one of its topic is press freedom and one of the briefers is a journalist, "Valentyna Samar, Head of Board of the Information Press Center in Simferopol, Chief Editor of the Centre of Journalistic Investigation, and member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network"?

   The Free UN Coalition for Access asked organizer Lithuania, if the meeting would be open to the press and public. The Lithuania mission by twitter replied, "There will be a media stakeout after the meeting."
 
   But, FUNCA asked, if journalist Samar would be inside the meeting, how can the wider press corps be kept out? Is Samar being asked to not report on the meeting, which is at least partially about restrictions on reporting?

    That question was not replied to, so Inner City Press City Press for FUNCA asked UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric why the Arria formula meeting (and the stakeout) are not listed in the UN Media Alert. Dujarric said if the UN -- the Department of Public Information News and Information Division he was at least until March 10 in charge of -- is informed, it puts events in the Alert.

  So the UN wasn't informed?

   At 2:50 pm Inner City Press went in front of the meeting and found the sign said "Closed." But after being encouraged to openly try to go in, Inner City Press along with other journalists were allowed to enter. This photograph was tweeted.

  Then Inner City Press was asked to leave. Why? A representative of the Lithuanian mission said that one of the witnesses is not allowed into Crimea so this is for security, but that there would be a stakeout. With the same witness? And if any UN member state was allowed in, does Lithuania trust them all?

    Inner City Press heard about the event on March 30 and got it confirmed both in New York and from the Baltics. The Lithuanian mission tweeted the event. Does the UN not follow them?  We'll have more on this.

   This meeting comes a day after US Secretary of Stat John Kerry and Russia's Sergey Lavrov meeting at the Russian Ambassador's residence in Paris. While the US talked Crimea, Russia moved on to Moldova. Click here for more on this.

   Russia's read-out of Putin's call to Obama raised the latter issue and was silent on the former. Much was made of this by talking heads on US Sunday morning shows.

   Perennial David Gergen mocked Kerry for turning his plane around to meet with Lavrov, asking rhetorically if this is the promised diplomatic isolation. A pair of Michaels, Hayden and Morell, mused about a commitment for Ukraine not to join NATO, or even the European Union. But what about the IMF deal?

  Soon to be former elected official Mike Rogers, headed to talk radio, went beyond dark talk of a land bridge to Moldova to speculate about Russia moving from South Ossetia to Armenia. He's running for the Republican Presidential nomination, it seems.

   On March 28 while at the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon took selective questions from the press about Ukraine (and Venezuela), the US White House issued a read-out of a call between President Barack Obama and Russia's Vladimir Putin, here.  Russia issued a different read-out, here. So how relevant is the UN?

   Later a Senior Administration Official explained,

  Back at the UN, Ban Ki-moon mentioned the word "radical."

  It was inevitable: as Inner City Press first reported, while in Kyiv Ban met with the leader of the Svodoba Party, adjudged as both racist and anti-Semitic and most recently beating up a television executive then getting the footage censored from YouTube via a bogus Millennium Digital Copyright Act complaint.

  In fact, on March 27 at the UN General Assembly stakeout Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin told Inner City Press Ban's meeting was "disturbing" and that he looked forward to an explanation in the March 28 Security Council consultations.  Video here. (We hope to have more on this.)

  At the March 28 noon briefing Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq if Ban had known in advance that Svoboda's leader would be present, and if he would address it at the stakeout. Video here.

  Haq declined to provide anything more than the list of parties Ban met with, which was provided after Inner City Press repeatedly asked over two days.

   But when Ban came to speak after briefing the Council, the questioners chosen were AP, CBS (or, the UN's Censorship Alliance), Bloomberg and Voice of America. While noting as an aside that Voice of America tried ot get the investigative Press thrown out of Ban's UN, in a request to Ban's now-spokesman, click here, big picture, all four questioners selected by / for Ban were Western -- all US-based, in fact. Ban was not asked about the Svoboda meeting.

   Moments later, Inner City Press asked outgoing Security Council president for March Sylvie Lucas of Luxembourg about Ban meeting Svoboda. She said, among other things, that You should have asked the Secretary General.

  But how? We'll have more on this.

   On March 27 when the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution rejecting the Crimea referendum, it was far from unanimous. There were 100 countries for, 11 against and fully 58 abstaining.

  Afterward, Inner City Press asked Russia Ambassador Vitaly Churkin about citation in the meeting of Kosovo as a precedent, and about UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon having met the leader of the Svoboda Party.

  Churkin took issue with a high US official claiming there was a referendum in Kosovo, and expressed concern about Ban meeting with a party deemed among other things racist and anti-Semitic.

   Inner City Press ran, before 12:10 pm, to the UN noon briefing in order to ask these and other questions. But Ban's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq had begun and ended the briefing before 12:09.

   This contrasts to Ban's Spokesperson's Office having, for example in October 2013, delayed the noon briefing so that a(nother) country's speech could be covered, click here for that.

  When asked on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access what the Spokesperson's Office policy is, Haq said, "You want a policy where it's all about you." We'll have more on this.

  In the GA meeting beyond Kosovo, Nicaragua cited the Honduras coup as an analogy. St. Vincent's cited Grenada, saying the positions are reversed but abstaining because the Ukraine resolution is about the principals, not the principles.

  Uruguay cited Kosovo and also the referendum carried out in the Malvinas / Falkland Islands. UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant was in the room, and tweeted at; if there's a response we'll publish.

   Earlier it was 4:25 am in New York and Washington when the International Monetary Fund announced its preliminary agreement for a $14 - $18 billion loan program with Ukraine.

 Inner City Press asked the IMF to confirm or comment on reports that the Ukrainian "increase the price of natural gas for household consumers by an average of 50%" is attributable to the IMF.

  At the IMF's 9:30 am embargoed briefing, IMF deputy spokesperson William Murray read out the question then said that the program has five components, including energy sector reform.

  He said Ukraine will reduce subsidies to the energy sector, and that current prices in Ukraine are two to three times lower than in neighboring countries. He said, as it did to other questions, that responses were given in a press conference in Kyiv.

 In New York at the UN, a General Assembly meeting started at 10 am. Russia's Ambassador Vitaly Churkin recounted history and said radicals "called the shots" in the change of government. We've noted that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with the leader of the Svoboda party while in Kyiv.

  In Washington later on March 27 the US Congress is expected to act on a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine, but not on the IMF changes the Obama administration requested. Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a statement welcoming the IMF preliminary deal, concluding that "We also remain committed to providing the IMF with the resources it needs – in partnership with Congress – to provide strong support to countries like Ukraine as well as reinforcing the Fund’s governance to reflect the global economy."
  
  Two weeks ago on March 13, the day after several US Senators argued that International Monetary Fund quota reform would have to be approved by Congress to enable the IMF to meaningfully assist Ukraine, Inner City Press asked IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice if this is true. Video here, from Minute 12:05.

  Rice genially said several times that the question couldn't or wouldn't be answered while the IMF mission is “in the field” in Ukraine. He initially gave the same answer to Inner City Press' question that had nothing to do with Ukraine: is it true, as Russia reportedly argued at the most recent G-20 meeting, that quota reform could be accomplished without US approval, under some set of rule changes?

  Rice during the briefing repeated this could not be answered while the mission is in Ukraine. Later it was conveyed that the reform is not possible without US approval. The answer is appreciated: a benefit of asking in person. But Inner City Press (and the Free UN Coalition for Access) hope to make the online asking of questions work better from now on.

 And on March 27, for example, IMF deputy spokesperson William Murray read out this question from Inner City Press:

  On March 27, Murray said he would not comment directly on what the Finance Minister said, but pointed to a press release we will add a link to.

  Back on March 13 in another non-Ukraine question, Inner City Press asked Rice about a book published earlier this week in Hungary, that the then-economy minister in 2011 told Goldman Sachs that the government would be going to the IMF for a program. Since much currency trading ensued, Inner City Press asked if the IMF has any rules limiting its government interlocutors from trading on or sharing insider information.Video here, from Minute 31:12.

  Rice said there are confidential provisions. But are those only for the contents of communication and not the existence of communications or negotiations? We'll see.