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

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 26 -- Dubious Syria rebel boss Ahmad al Jarba will speak for fifteen and then five minutes in the UN Economic and Social Council chamber later today, according to an event schedule sent by the French Mission to the UN to some UN journalists (but not, we note, Inner City Press.)

  The timing is strange, as more than a dozen groups in Syria actually fighting the Assad government have disavowed Jarba and said he has no support.

Jarba has twice this week tried to hold a faux "UN briefing" sponsored by the similarly dubious UN Correspondents Association, whose board is dominated by Gulf and Western media favoring the installation of Jarba in Damascus.
 
   This was challenged by the new Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info. It was postponed from September 24 to 25, then canceled on September 25.

  But now, with no media stakeout or questions allowed, Jarba will hold forth at a "Group of Friends of Syrian people" meeting "in the honour of the President of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces Mr. Ahmad Al-Assi Al-Jarba," for an entire fifteen minutes, then five at the end.

  France's Laurent Fabius gets five minutes then closing remarks. Given three minutes each, are Australia, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

  With Friends like that... Particularly the later two, there are serious questions how they are impacting the Syrian people. Watch this site.