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  ICP has published a (double) book about a variety of Bronx-relevant topics -- a review in Commonweal magazine of Dec. 5, 2003, opines  that "Predatory Bender... is as vivid an account of life in the Bronx as you are likely to read" -- click here for sample chapters, here for an interactive map,  here for fast ordering and delivery, and here for other ordering information.  See also, "City Lit: Roman a Klepto [Review of ‘Predatory Bender’]," by Matt Pacenza, City Limits, Sept.-Oct. 2004. CBS MarketWatch of April 23, 2004, says the the novel has "some very funny moments," and that the non-fiction mixes "global statistics and first-person accounts." The Washington Post of March 15, 2004, calls Predatory Bender: America in the Aughts "the first novel about predatory lending;" the London Times of April 15, 2004, "A Novel Approach," said it "has a cast of colorful characters."   The Pittsburgh City Paper of Dec. 11, 2003, wrote that it "may, in fact, be the first great American lending malfeasance novel" including "low-level loan sharks, class-action lawyers, corporate bigwigs, hired muscle, corrupt politicians, Iraq War veterans, Wall Street analysts, reporters and one watchdog with a Web site."  And all in The Bronx!   Click here for that review; for more information, contact us.
2014: MRL on Beacon Reader

By Matthew Russell Lee, Audio

UNITED NATIONS, October 11 – The UN maintains a secret list of people banned from entering its premises. Even the Security officers who enforce the ban are not told the reason why a person is on the list: whether it was for actual violence, or writing articles questioning the Secretary General Antonio Guterres' misuse of public funds, for example. One told Inner City Press the secret list includes "demonstrators" and "political activists," audio here.

  Guterres or apparently his head of Global Communications Alison Smale, if only as a proxy, can put a journalist on the list without any review, any notice, any appeal. It is a dictator's dream come true.

   Inner City Press was physically ousted twice by Guterres' UN Security this summer as it reported on his now-15 flights to his home in Lisbon with public funds, his trading away of Cameroon human rights abuses for favors in the Budget Committee, and now his son Pedro's undisclosed business links in Africa. Smale on August 17, without once speaking to me covering the UN for Inner City Press for 11 years, withdrew my media accreditation.

  But it's gone further than that. For example, on October 11 I showed up for a film screening about sex trafficking, “Love Sonia,” to which I had been invited by the UN Office of Drugs and Crimes. UNODC's New York director personally put me on the list for a post screening reception and came and met me and took me to the UN gate to sign me in, since my ticket - which she said she'd seen - mysteriously disappeared.

  UN Security refused to allow the NY director of UNODC to sign me in. “Even if he had a ticket we'd have to check,” one officer said. I was told that a supervisor would come out, and that UNODC would speak to them. But after one hour it never happened. Guterres' chief of staff Maria Luiza Viotti left the building and I audibly told her, I'm invited but I'm being blocked. She did not even break stride.

  The UN has given me nothing in writing that I am banned. Guterres' spokesman has stated it as a fact, without explanation or rationale, on October 9 and 11, while refusing to answer my e-mailed questions despite Smale's promise they would be answered to supposedly respect my "journalistic endeavours."

   Another UN Security officer told me, No one is going to help you. You are on the list. I asked him, who else is on the list? He mentioned “demonstrators” and "political activists" and others. Audio here.

  Tellingly, NOT on Guterres' banned list are those who pleaded guilty to UN bribery for example in the Ng Lap Seng - John Ashe case. They are not banned by Guterres, UNlike the journalist who most closely covered those convictions, and the current UN bribery case of Patrick Ho and the China Energy Fund Committee. Guterres is fine with bribery, but bans those who investigate and expose it.

UNSG Guterres thinks he can ban people without no notice, no due process, no review? And that it won't be noticed or reviewed? Watch this site.

By Matthew Russell Lee, Video, Q&A, HK here

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFTracker

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFTracker Scope

UNITED NATIONS, September 14 – In US politics, the upset in June by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Joe Crowley for a House of Representatives seat in The Bronx and bits of Queens sent many to Wikipedia or Google to look up “Democratic Socialism.” On September 13 Ocasio-Cortez campaigned in The Bronx at least in some places for and with Alessandra Biaggi, taking on Jeff Klein for a State Senate.A flier supporting her said "Klein Vendio a los Neoyorquinos" on the "Ley de Votcion Temprana." Inner City Press, banned by the UN for the 72d day in a row, went to the Bronx intersection of Pelham Parkway and White Plains Road to cover Biaggi's campaigning, video here. And hours later Biaggi declared victory, 55-45, at the Bronx Ale House. She said, “This is because of every single one of you who were courageous, who saw a vision as well, who knew that we could not tolerate Democrats who would be empowering Republicans, that that was intolerable,” she said. “And we have now cut the head off the IDC snake.” Klein spent over $2 million in the race, while Biaggi had spent only $244,000 through the end of August, pursuant to state Board of Elections campaign finance disclosures.

Earlier, Ocasio-Cortez' press list was told to expect her at Pelham Parkway between 4:30 and 5 pm. Inner City Press went, banned from the UN now for the 72d day in a row for covering the corruption on Cameroon and elsewhere of Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Up on under the El train on White Plains Road the reviews of the UN and also the US Mission to the UN weren't very positive. But where was Ocasio-Cortez?

   Biaggi's volunteers handed out her laminated flier at the stairs up to the 2 and 5 train tracks. A couple arrived in a car with a small sound system. But still no Ocasio-Cortez. Finally Biaggi appears, speaking with people on the sidewalk and heading south toward Lydig Avenue.

Inner City Press did too, launching the Periscope live-stream which the UN cited in banning it for life, and on which the US Mission's Nikki Haley, a one time governor of South Carolina and seeming to want more, refuses to answer. One hopes those who now represent not only this district but areas like it can push to get from the UN less corruption, or at least an end to censorship. Politics retail and wholesale, immunity by the pound. At Tacos El Bronco II they serve them for two dollars, with big green onions. They get this reporter's vote. Watch this site

This was Ocasio-Cortez' schedule:

By Matthew Russell Lee, Letter PFT Q&A Haley

UNITED NATIONS GATE, September 6 – How arrogant or out of touch a self-styled world leader is has been revealed in the Leader's contemptuous approach to freedom of the press and whose who even gently chide him on it, including a Nobel Peace Prize winner. No, this is not a reference to Donald Trump, but to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, including as represented by his Franco-American spokesman Stephane Dujarric. And now Inner City Press is told that Guterres is cynically trying to recast his 65 days of censorship as being based on a request FROM the Trump Administration, or at least Trump's UN Mission to the UN and its ally, the UK. A UN Correspondent who sought as many have to get the ban on Inner City Press lifted at least from the upcoming General Assembly week has said, in writing: "I spoke with Stephane the other day and unfortunately your situation remains unchanged. The case against you is based on complaints from the US & UK Missions... I have tried to get you a waiver for the UNGA week but Security remains firm in their refusal." So, the answer is that Guterres ban on Inner City Press -- which began on July 3 right after I spoke with Cameroon's Ambassador -- is now based on questions I have asked the US Mission's Deputy Ambassadors including Jonathan Cohen and UK Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Allen at the Delegates' Entrance AFTER I was already banned. There was also serial questioning of Guterres and UK Permanent Representative Karen Pierce in front of IPI on July 20, Periscope video here. In fact, all of my questioning of the US and UK Missions, and all other Mission, is online on Periscope, full archive here. It is no different that the questions hurled at Trump. But there, the First Amendment applies. At the UN, it seems, an already censoring Secretary General can claim to get subsequent support from... Trump and his Mission. See 6 September 2018 question put to US Ambassador Nikki Haley, here. Inner City Press had already submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the UK government, after statements by UN (British) Under Secretary General Alison Smale. Now today a US FOIA request has been filed to the US State Department in Washington:

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, CJR Letter PFT, Video

UNITED NATIONS GATE, August 31 – Before Inner City Press was roughed up by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' Security on June 22 and July 3, 2018 and under a ban on entry since then, made "permanent" by Guterres head of Global Communications or censorship Alison Smale on August 17, it insistently asked about Guterres' conflicts of interest, for example with murderous Cameroon chairing the UN Budget Committee where Guterres sought support or with the business interests of his family, as for disclosure of how many of Guterres' publicly funded trip took him through his real home, Lisbon. (The answer, with no UN help, is at least 14.) Now on August 31 Inner City Press has been informed of some of the intentional mis-information Guterres and Smale are trying to use to justify their censorship of the critical Press. Two senior UN officials who are privately outraged at what Guterres is doing, one calling Guterres "arrogant" and the other "abusive," both recount hat  supporters of Guterres are spreading the rumor that Inner City Press "went to the apartment of Alison Smale and shouted at her." We've heard that from others as well. It is an outright lie, not nearly the first by the team of Guterres, Smale and Dujaric. First, Inner City Press doesn't even know, or want to know, where Smale lives. Second, while Inner City Press several times tried to explain to Smale that her total failure to implement content neutral accreditation and access rules (and rather hob-nobbing with now retired correspondents of or before her era) would lead and has led to shameful censorship, Inner City Press never raised its voice, even when at the Russian Mission to the UN Smale's pianist husband Sergei Dreznin told Inner City Press it would always be targeted until it wore a suit. (For now, he will presumably have access during GA week to the UN, where he played back up piano, while Guterres through Smale bans Inner City Press which actually covers the UN, Yemen, Myanmar and (Guterres wishes it wasn't so) Cameroon.. So the UN of Smale and Guterres, now on his way to China after refusing to answer why Inner City Press is banned, is powered by lies - is it any wonder that no conflicts have been prevented? In fact, Guterres poured gas on Biya's killings in Cameroon, staying quiet for his reasons(s) and sending the envoy Francois Lounceny Fall who equated separatists with extremists? We'll have more on this. Despite Smale's assuarces, Inner City Press' questions are not being answered by Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, and Guterres has had Inner City Press banned from the UN for life, by his Global Communicator Alison Smale who has failed to make even the minimal public financial disclosure called for under Guterres' predecessor Ban Ki-moon. Guterres' forms do not include the business interests of his direct children - but they should, see below.

On August 31, the 59th day Inner City Press has been banned from the UN by Guterres, there was nothing listed on Guterres' schedule until 4:30 pm: grip and grin photo op with the new Ambassadors on Armenia, Costa Rica, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sidhartha Francisco Marin Aráuz of Nicaragua. But at 1:10 pm some of Guterres many guards -- one, Lt Ronald E Dobbins, twice roughed up Inner City Press on June 22 (which Inner City Press wrote to Guterres about on June 25) and more so on July 3 - showed up telling other cars including diplomats' cars where they could and couldn't park on 46th Street. Soon fully three black 4x4s pulled up in front of the restaurant Aretsky's Patroon, which recently hosted Hillary Clinton. Out stepped Guterres and UN President of the General Assembly Miroslav Lajcak, who disclosed a 1:15 pm appointment with Guterres. First (silent) video here.  An hour and a half later, Guterres emerged with his chief of staff Maria Luiza Viotti and with Miguel Graca. Inner City Press asked, calmly but audibly, why Guterres is banning it from entering to cover the General Assembly Week, which is has covered for 11 years, about what he has (not) done on Cameroon and on conflicts of interest related to his son's business links, first reported by Inner City Press. As is the Guterres way, he got into his limosine. Video here. By contrast the President of the General Assembly Miroslav Lajcak listened when Inner City Press asked about access to the GA and seemed... well, we'll see and report.

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFTracker

UNITED NATIONS GATE, August 24 – After having covered the UN since 2005 for Inner City Press, and pursued stories of UN under-performance from Sri Lanka to Darfur and Haiti to Yemen and most recently Secretary General Antonio Guterres' failure and conflict of interest on Cameroon, at 4 pm on Friday August 17 I got a four page letter from Under Secretary General Alison Smale, formerly the New York Times' Berlin bureau chief. We've put the letter on Scribd here, Patreon download here. 

The letter informed me, without a single opportunity to be heard and offer rebuttal, that “your accreditation is hereby withdrawn pursuant to the Guidelines.” It cited what it called three previous warnings. But on further inspection there is no there, there. See below. It also claimed that Guterres' spokesmen would answer Inner City Press' e-mailed questions. But this it false. Of the fourteen question Inner City Press e-mailed to them, and Smale, and Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed and others on August 23 and 24, not one was answered. Not one. Including: "August 24-3: Given that Deputy Spokesman Haq told IPS “we respect his press rights, but we also want to respect other’s press rights. And some journalists feel their press rights have been impeded by his actions” - state, since this is the basis of me being banned, who these are, and how they feel their press rights have been impeded by my actions. Also all video and other evidence that Haq alluded to to IPS should be produced, today, since it is the basis of my being banned." Nothing has been provided, eight hours later, by Spokesman Stephane Dujarric who was drawing pay all day after having essentially ordered or passed on from his boss the order to rough up Inner City Press. From the IPS article: "Lee has been known for asking thought-provoking questions during daily briefings and at press stakeouts. He has reported on global conflicts such as those in Sri Lanka, Congo, Somalia, and others... However, the incidents with Lee started back in 2012, when he was warned by the DPI to treat his fellow journalists with respect." That's not the case. In 2012, the President of the UN Correspondents Association Giampaolo Pioli, who had rented one of him Manhattan apartments to one Palitha Kahona then unilaterally granted his request or demand for an UNCA screening of the war crimes denial film of the Sri Lanka government he represented at the UN, ordered Inner City Press to remove from the Internet its article about the conflict of interest. Inner City Press declined but offered to publish any response, at any length. Pioli and the UNCA board demanded removal of the article, and ultimately Inner City Press quit UNCA and co-founded FUNCA, the Free UN Coalition for Access. The UN claimed it was uninvolved - instead, then head of Accreditation Stephane Dujarric tried to condition Inner City Press' re-accreditation as a resident correspondent on more positive coverage of the Secretariat, specifically his fellow Frenchman Herve Ladsous, the head of Peacekeeping who famously said peacekeepers would rape less if they had more "R&R." So from 2012 it was the UN trying to strong arm positive coverage of its officials, and using the aura of "other correspondents" in UNCA as the leverage - making UN the UN Censorship Alliance.
  The article continues: "wo years ago, things changed: he was in an interpreter’s booth recording a closed-door meeting of UN correspondents, without their consent. Then, DPI’s Media and Liaison Unit (MALU) made the decision to downgrade his accreditation from “resident correspondent” to “non-resident correspondent”, which means he was deprived of his own office space, barred from going to the UN on weekends and prevented from staying late hours and restricted from some areas in the building. Although Lee believes this was “bogus reason” for the treatment he received, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary General, told IPS: 'Matthew has come up with his own version on his website. But in that case I know to be true what I saw with my eyes.'"
  What the IPS article - which we are appreciative of, including for getting these quotes - omits is that this supposedly closed meeting was in the UN Press Briefing Room, open to all journalists. And Haq, when he followed Dujarric in, reflexively took the side of the UN Censorship Alliance, saying of Inner City Press, "He lies a lot." Video here.  Is that appropriate, under Smale's rules of procedure?
  IPS continues, " It seemed that the change in his accreditation pass had no effect. “After that, the problems with his behavior did not subside”, said Haq.

[That is, the goal is taking Inner City Press' work space and giving it to no-show, no question Egyptian state media Akhbar al Yom's Sanaa Yousseff was to make Inner City Press behavior or reporting "subside." Note as the article didn't and perhaps didn't have to that Farhan Haq previously worked for IPS - that and his father are how he got his UN job - and presumably was a member of UNCA. We'd asked but wouldn't get an answer, if the past is any guide.]

IPS: "On June 22nd, Lee had to be removed from the UN premises as he stayed long after his accreditation permitted him, and on July 3rd, he was similarly found long after 9 pm within a restricted area of the complex. UN Security removed him from the premises, but he apparently resisted."

 As Inner City Press has told IPS, "noted for the record

I'm appreciative of the detailed article, but for the record: "On June 22nd, Lee had to be removed from the UN premises as he stayed long after his accreditation permitted him." It was 7:15 pm, Antonio Guterres had just given a speech, video here;

and

... "on July 3, he was similarly found long after 9 pm within a restricted area of the complex. UN Security removed him from the premises, but he apparently resisted." There is video, and an NYPD criminal report (UN hasn't waived immunity), " video here;

and finally (for now)

... "on July 3, he was similarly found long after 9 pm within a restricted area of the complex. UN Security removed him from the premises, but he apparently resisted." There is video, and an NYPD criminal report (UN hasn't waived immunity).

 And so it goes at the UN - there's more but that's it for now. On August 20, when the PressFreedomTracker.us belatedly listed Guterres' and Smale's roughing up and banning of Inner City Press, here, Guterres' spokesman Dujarric made it clear it is all about content. While insisting it is not about Inner City Press' "writing," he specifically cited Periscope broadcasts as a basis for the lifetime ban. That is censorship.  UN transcript here and below.

  But on closely inspection Smale's letter is even more ghoulish. After she for Guterres banned Inner City Press from entry from July 3 onward, in order to report on the UN Inner City Press had to seek answers other than at the UN Noon Briefing and UN Security Council stakeout position, from which Guterres and Smale also banned it. Inner City Press asks question in front of the UN Delegates Entrance, and has gotten about put online responses from, among others, outgoing UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid, Burundi's Ambassador, and on August 20, for example, a diplomat on the North Korea sanctions committee (whose chair Karel van Oosterom refused to comment) and UK Mission political coordinator Stephen Hickey (whose Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Allen also recently refused to comment.)

 This stakeout is where Inner City Press asks questions only because Guterres and Smale have banned it since July 3. But in her August 17 letter, Smale justifies the ban imposed July 3 with this post-July 3 interviews, and says that UNnamed member states - and somehow correspondents - have complained.

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter The Hill

UNITED NATIONS GATE, August 17 -- After having covered the UN since 2005 for Inner City Press, and pursued stories of UN under-performance from Sri Lanka to Darfur and Haiti to Yemen and Cameroon, at 4 pm on Friday August 17 I got a four page letter from Under Secretary General Alison Smale, formerly the New York Times' Berlin bureau chief. We've put the letter on Scribd here, Patreon download here. 

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR, 7/3 Video, Filing I II III

UNITED NATIONS, August 11 – Inner City Press on July 5 was told at the UN gate that it was banned from entering any UN premises, the day after it filed a criminal complaint against UN Security Lieutenant Ronald Dobbins and another for physically removing it from covering the July 3 meeting about the UN's $6.7 billion peacekeeping budget, as witnessed and essentially cheered on by Secretary General Antonio Guterres' Assistant SG Christian Saunders, tearing its reporter's shirt, painfully and intentionally twisting his arm and slamming shut and damaging his laptop. Video here. Columbia Journalism Review here.

Now on August 11, amid a 39 day ongoing “review” of Inner City Press that has shifted from the initial charge of being in the building too long on July 3 covering the Budget Committee meeting to undefined “harassment” of unnamed off the record correspondents, Guterres' spokesman Farhan Haq has told Fox News: “there have been a number of allegations from fellow journalists that Lee has harassed them over the years. 'A lot of journalists have not just been harassed but threatened by him and that’s a problem,' Haq said.”

   That last line is extraordinary. Without identifying a single one of these "lot of journalists," Haq declares their anonymous allegations to be true: "HAVE not just been harassed but threatened me him." This stands in contrast to the UN not accepting - in the case of Alison Smale and Stephane Dujarric, trying to not even acknowledge receiving - Inner City Press' written, on the record allegations complete with exhibits. It's called favoritism, and censorship.

  This same Farhan Haq recently answered one of Inner City Press' written questions, about why Guterres had taken no action on its documented exclusive May 24 report for which it received threats (and subsequent letter to Guterres and Smale) that through presumptive nepotism, management of the UN Security Council's website had been given to John van Rosendaal, the photographer husband of Kyoko Shiotani, the chief of staff of Guterres' Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, previously US Deputy Ambassador to the UN under Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Haq responded, "If there are allegations of misconduct they should be taken to the internal oversight offices and mechanisms. Unfounded allegations do not constitute a formal complaint." So how does Haq for the UN now deem anonymous allegations against Inner City Press not only as formal complaints, and as true?

    This is Kafkaesque. Inner City Press quit the UN Correspondents Association after finding it to be corrupt. Its president after having rented one of his Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona, who as Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN accused of a role in the White Flag Killings, unilaterally granted Kohona's request to him to screen a Sri Lanka government war crimes denial film as an UNCA event, in the Dag Hammarskjold Library auditorium. This was done without approval of or even notice to all Executive Committee members of which Inner City Press was one. When Inner City Press reported on it, not only the UNCA president but only Committee members from Reuters, AFP and other outlets demanded that it take the article offline. Inner City Press offered the UNCA president as much space on Inner City Press as he'd want to reply, but he and UNCA wanted censorship, then as now.

   After Inner City Press quit UNCA, and faced counterfeit troll Twitter accounts and anonymous (but leaked) complaints to Guterres' now lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric from Lou Charbonneau of Reuters (now Human Rights Watch) here and censored from Google with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act here and Voice of America, here as obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, it has not spoken to these individuals since.

   Whatever claimed harassment or threatens they are claiming to or for the UN is not based on any actual interaction, only Inner City Press' articles and, it seems, equally First Amendment protected Periscope broadcasts, even one that was inadvertent and deleted but ghoulishly monitored and captured by or for the UN. (More on this soon).