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

On Yemen Arms, Reuters Sources Them to Iran with Blind Quote, No NYT Disclosure

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 29 -- Did the weapons stopped en route to Yemen recently come from Iran? A US official, left unnamed by Reuters, says so. But on that basis?

    Unlike Reuters, the New York Times discloses that the "briefed" US officials "declined to provide details."

  But Reuters runs the blind quote, "This demonstrates the ever pernicious Iranian meddling." Demonstrates how?

   Similarly on the Democratic Republic of Congo on January 25 Reuters from the UN in New York ran a quote from a UN official they let be anonymous that "'It is not simply peacekeeping, this is peace enforcement. It's a much more robust stance,' said the official, who declined to be named."

  Inner City Press asked on January 26: why did Reuters accept this request for anonymity from a UN official on a concept -- "peace enforcement" -- that not all UN member states, particularly troop contributing countries, have agreed to?

  And where's the accountability now? Reuters story on the promoted deal's failure at the AU summit in Addis Ababa didn't use or mention the January 25 blind quote, or even use the term peace "enforcement."

   Agence France Presse went further, or lower, allowing a "second UN official" to also go unnamed.
 
   But AFP then named the associate UN  spokesperson who announced the failure of the deal half an hour before it was to be signed.

   What are AFP's policies for allowing anonymous declarations of war by the UN, which is ostensibly controlled by the member states who now say they were not consulted?

  Again, what are Reuters' policies on granting anonymity in cases like this for Reuters editors like Stephen J. Adler, Walden Siew, and Paul Ingrassia, for Agence France Presse, for BBC?

 And a new question: which of these media's UN correspondent(s) has responded by start a counterfeit social media account calling the question raised above "outrageous" and trying to stop, on behalf of the UN Correspondents Association a/k/a UN's Censorship Alliance, the press to open up the UN by the new Free UN Coalition for Access?

  After the UN failed in the Democratic Republic of Congo to protect civilians first in Goma then in Minova, where the DRC Army raped at least 126 women in late November 2012, a reserve spin war began.

  UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous refused to answer Press questions about the Minova rapes, instead taking favored and compliant media out into the hall for a private briefing. Video here. These media included Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Voice of America.

  Now it's gotten worse. On January 25, 2013 AFP, Reuters and the BBC at the UN allowed an "unnamed UN official" to essentially declare war in the Congo.

  Why grant anonymity? Is this a whistleblower? Or a failing UN official?

  In terms of the UN, isn't this "inter-governmental organization" owned and supposedly by its member states? Many of them, particularly troop contributing countries, have not agreed to Ladsous' "peace enforcement" push, nor in the C-34 committee on peacekeeping have they signed off on his proposal to use drones.

  But Ladsous, Inner City Press reported on January 25, ran a procurement for drones from November 28, 2012 to January 11, 2013, before he had any approval at all.

Here's the inital video #LADSOUS2013, soft launched January 27.

  What right do high UN official have to declare war anonymously? And why do AFP, Reuters and the BBC serve as pass throughs in this way?

  Of note in this is the role of the decaying UN Correspondents Association. When Ladsous became the last minute replacement for Jerome Bonnafont as France's official to succeed their own Alain Le Roy atop UN Peacekeeping and Inner City Press reported it, AFP's Tim Witcher launched a process in UNCA to "take action" against Inner City Press.

  He, the BBC reporter and Reuters are all on the Executive Committee on UNCA, two elected without any competition after their terms expired.

  Ultimately he and Louis Charbonneau of Reuters supported Voice of America's June 20, 2012 request to the UN that Inner City Press accreditation be "reviewed."

  This led the New York Civil Liberties Union to ask public questions about due process for independent journalists at the UN, questions that the UN has yet to answer.

  Then in December 2012 when Ladsous went so far as to have his spokesman seize the UNTV microphone so Inner City Press could not ask Ladsous a question about the now 126 rapes in Minova by the UN's partners in the Congolese Army, UNCA did nothing. Video here.

  UN official Stephane Dujarric claims he told Ladsous' spokesman not to do it again -- but never told anyone until a January 17 meeting when he and another UN official, Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal (we name officials) were Pressed by the new Free UN Coalition for Access on the UN's further decline in transparency.

  But now this UN machinery and its servile press allow a UN official to declare war anonymously. A new low has been reached. Could they go lower? Apparently yes. Watch this site.