UN GATE,
Dec 29 –
As inside the increasingly
marginal United Nations a
process begins to select a
successor to Antonio Guterres
who banned
Inner City
Press from the
UN as it
reported on
his links
with briber
CEFC China
Energy and to
sex trafficker
Ghislaine
Maxwell,
it is time to review the
history. Part 9:
As
Guterres lurched into April 2017, he left
discrepancies in his UN financial disclosures
in 2016 (sans Gulbenkian) and 2013 go
unexplained as he met with Canada's Justin
Trudeau. What were the topics? There was no
read-out.
Nor
for Guterres' meeting on April 18, 20217with
Ukraine's deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy
Kyslytsya. His close adviser Katrin Hett came
to tell the assembled staffers they would not
be needed, the meeting would be held with only
four on each side in Guterres' office
overlooking the East River and Queens. Things
were getting more and more private - and more
and more expensive.
On
April 20, 2017 holdover spokesman Stephane
Dujarric announced that Guterres wanted a
review of the UN's air travel costs; he also
belatedly confirmed what Inner City Press
asked the day before, about Guterres traveling
to Switzlerland later in the month from the UN
Chief Executives Board meetings. Inner City
Press asked what the costs of this CEB
meeting, culminating in old haunt Montreux,
would be. Dujarric did not provide any number.
Hypocrisy
grew: on his way to Montreux, Guterres wrote
to staff, "I expect all of us to be frugal in
the acquisition of supplies, materials,
furniture and equipment." For UN Youth Envoy,
an ostensibly important position, no notice
was placed on Guterres' website. Inner City
Press asked Maher Nasser the Officer of Charge
of the UN Department of Public Information now
"Global Communications" about the disparity,
and about why it was still restricted to
minders.
Nasser
replied "Matthew - This is same process
through which first youth envoy nominations
were solicited. U have same access as 3000
other journalists." The last was false - Inner
City Press had minders while even other
non-resident correspondents walk down the
hallway, and no-question state media from
Egypt and Morocco have full access.
But
it would grow worse under Guterres: full out
ouster, and a refusal to even acknowledge
written questions.
Duplicity
about Washington began and would continue:
there was no read-out of Guterres' so-called
"stop by" meeting on April 21, 2017 with US
President Donald Trump. Guterres said it was
only a "brief encounter" with Trump; Dujarric
told Inner City Press it was "15 to 20
minutes." Others said, "three minutes."
Jump cut
to December 29, 2025, with Inner City Press
still fully banned from the UN by Guterres: "The
Secretary-General welcomes today’s announcement
by the United States of an initial $2 billon
commitment to the lifesaving humanitarian work
of the United Nations around the world."
*Initial* when the US State Department said
“individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt,
shrink, or die.” And no answers on UNODC in
Tashkent...
More on this
UNgutted 9 - and France's
Bonnafont & AFP - on X for
Subscribers here
and Substack here
***
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