UN
PGA Espinosa Says 3543
Correspondents at UNGA But Not
Inner City Press Grayley Has
Request
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR Letter
PFT, Video
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, October 1 – After Inner
City Press was roughed up by UN
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres' Security on June
22 and July
3, 2018 but before
Guterres' Global Communicator
Alison Smale without any hearing
purported to make it a lifetime
ban on August 17, Inner City
Press wrote
to Miroslav Lajcak as now-gone
President of the General
Assembly. Lajcak through his
spokesman expressed sympathy but
Guterres changed nothing before
Lajcak turned over the gavel to
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés
of Ecuador, who on October 1
held a press conference Inner
City Press was banned from. In
it she said that the UN
Secretariat brags it accredited
3,543 correspondents to the
General Assembly - but not Inner
City Press, which actually
covers the UN. She said she will
be transparent - something she
told Inner City Press before it
was roughed up and banned. Among
her 20 to 22
meetings a day
she did not
meet with Ri
Yong Ho, Minister
for Foreign
Affairs of the
Democratic
People’s
Republic of
Korea
or North Korea,
and said she
would look
into the GA
resolution about the
so called "UN
Command"
there. She said
it is quite
normal that
today Bolivia
by process of
the alphabet
took over
presidency of
the UN
Security
Council, which
she called an
important
organ. The
first,
set-aside
question was
all about
Trump, as were many
others. María
Fernanda
Espinosa said
she is not
aware of any
of her
predecessors
as PGA having
a female
spokesperson.
But, as one
example,
Nassir
Abdulaziz
Al-Nasser had
Nihal Saad.
The new spokesperson, Monica
Grayley, received a formal
request for the PGA to act to
reverse the ban on Inner City
Press. We await the response.
Watch this site. While Smale
cited concerns of diplomats,
Guterres' spokesman Dujarric who
on August 28 said the ban was
based on creating a hostile
environment for diplomats on
September 17 said it was all
Guterres' Secretariat with "no
inputs from any member states."
We'll see - and we'll be writing
to María Fernanda Espinosa
Garcés. She has already been
asked, video here
with a speech of hers that Inner
City Press was able to
live-stream on Periscope, now
banned from UN. The UN is not
Guterres', Smale's and
Dujarric's kingdom of
censorship. At the stakeout by
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés,
no fault (yet) of hers, two of
the first three questions were
from Voice of America. That's
not appropriate. María
Fernanda
Espinosa
Garcés
unveiled an
acronym DARE,
on which we'll
have more, and
called the GA
the parliament
of humanity.
So will the
Press be
barred from
the upcoming
level week,
under
ever-shifting
justifications
of censorship?
We'll see.
Lajack's spokesman Brenden
Varma, always more responsive
than Guterres' Stephane
Dujarric, replied that "I
discussed your letter with the
PGA. Please know that he is
personally sympathetic to your
situation. He also continues to
strongly believe that the UN
should be as transparent as
possible and that journalists
should be able to do their work
without hindrance.” But nothing
was done - Lajcak, the head of
the world's legislature, claimed
he had to defer to Guterres and
Smale, even after their
conflicts of interest were
shown. In the case of Smale,
there is a threshold
issue - she has not even
made the UN's bare bones public
financial disclosure, until
other officials like Natalia
Gherman who started after her.
Lajcak has made his one-page
disclosure public today on his
last day: "Assets:
• Residential property, Slovakia
Profits from the sale of
personal property:
Nil
Stock options:
• Nil
Liabilities:
• Mortgage, Tatra Banka,
Slovakia
Loan, State Housing Development
Fund, Slovakia
Other activities:
Legal representative of the
Ministry of Foreign and European
Affairs of the Slovak Republic
at Diplomatic Corps Service,
Slovakia (as part of official
duties as Minister of Foreign
and European Affairs)
Miroslav Lajcák President of the
72nd session of the General
Assembly
Date:17 September 2018." We'll
have more on this. Lajcak is a
nice enough guy, but something
is wrong with a UN system where
no due process banning of an
investigative journalist can
take place with blatant
conflicts of interest and the
person ostensibly in charge of
the world's parliament say he
can do nothing, and does
nothing, banning coverage of
UNGA73. The new PGA's
spokesperson is to be Monica
Grayley. Watch this site.
***
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