| UAE As UNSC
Prez Blocks Press So No Qs on Anything in
Africa or Socotra Ukraine Dodge
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
UN GATE, March 1
– With the United Arab
Emirates taking over
presidency of the UN Security
Council on March 1, after it
twice abstained on Ukraine,
midday on February 28 Inner
City Press wrote to the UAE
Mission to the UN to request
access to its March 1 press
conference by Ambassador Lana
Nusseibeh (who skipped both
abstention meetings).
Inner City
Press wrote to the Mission at
NYUNPRM at mofaic.gov.ae and
Media at uaeun.org and to its
listed spokesman Shahad.jm at
uaeun.org, apparently MIA:
"This is a timely request that
you send Inner City Press the
pass code(s) to access your
UAE's Mission's UNSC
Presidency press briefing by
Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, on
March 1 and on every other day
of March I have questions to
ask on what you will do this
month about the conflicts in
Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan,
Myanmar, Cameroon, Haiti,
Nigeria, Yemen and Libya,
etc. Inner City Press is
asking to be provided with
access / the passwords to your
Mission's stakeouts and press
conferences this month as UNSC
President - including on
issues of UN(SC) compliance
with NYC COVID-19 rules. As
president of the UNSC you have
a duty to respond to media of
and in the host
city.
As I hear that you may be
moving the Council more and
more fully back into its
Chamber, either way I would
also like to ask you to
instruct MALU / USG-DGC
Fleming to allow me to enter
to cover it, for Inner City
Press. I
should be allowed to put
question to your Mission as
UNSC President - this is a
formal request that you take
steps to allow and not block
on, by mid-afternoon Feb 28."
By the 2 PM
"press" conference, full of
congratulations and softball
questions, nothing.
In the briefing,
Ambassador Lana
Nusseibeh took
questions in
clumps so as
to pick and
choose. Even
so she dodged
on Ukraine.
And no one
then let in
asks anything
about
sub-Saharan
Africa, where
the UN raises
most of its
money, much
less Socotra.
They'll have
lunch with
Guterres on
March 9, and
do Yemen March
15. Inner City
Press will
report on all
of it, inside
or out.
The
March 1 Press ban is
inconsistent, to say the
least, with the UAE's duty as
President of the UN Security
Council. Inner City
Press covered the UN and UNSC
under Kofi Annan and Ban
Ki-moon then was thrown out
under Antonio Guterres after
asking him directly about [,
among other things including
Cameroon,] the omission
from his financial disclosure
covering 2016 of his link,
through Lisbon's Gulbenkian
Foundation which paid him
money, to convicted UN briber
CEFC China Energy.
This was and is a
legitimate journalistic
question however Inner City
Press has been banned by
Guterres and his USG Melissa
Fleming.
There is no
commitment by the UN
Secretariat to even respond to
a polite law firm letter
seeking access to Inner City
Press, see video.
See also Press
Freedom Tracker and The
Independent (UK)
The UAE Mission
and the UAE have a duty to not
collude in censorship, and to
take questions from media.
Inner City Press is permitted
(in fact, invited) to put
WebEx questions to the IMF
briefings, see below, and is
accredited at the SDNY Federal
court here in New York.
So it is up to
the UAE and the UAE Mission to
provide access.
Watch this
site.
***
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