In part 1, I described the entertainment extravaganza taking place on Saturday, April 18 on an astonishing array of domestic TV networks, including ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and CBS, and many international TV networks and social media platforms. The event is intended as a fundraiser for the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), which is embroiled in controversy for its role in covering up and defending China’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic that the world is suffering through at this time.
These networks have created a conflict of interest for themselves, because they are not digging in to report on the corruption of an organization for which they are in the process of raising tens of millions of dollars. In this case, they have the added benefit of the fact that President Trump has called for a withholding of payment to the WHO while he investigates their role in this apparently preventable tragedy that has taken more than 150,000 lives and has destroyed trillions of dollars’ worth of wealth and financial security, leading to a possible worldwide depression. For even more on how destructive this co-dependency between China and the WHO has been for the rest of the world, check out this article by Claudia Rosett, who has been watching and reporting on both the UN and China for decades.
But there are other reasons why the U.S. and others should be withholding funds from the WHO and redirecting them to more worthy organizations to address the issues related to pandemics and other global health issues such as malaria and polio.
One such issue is the matter of Israel and the Palestinians, and how the WHO has taken sides in the conflict. Last May, according to UN Watch:
“The annual assembly of the UN’s World Health Organization today voted 96 to 11 for a resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab bloc and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel over ‘Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.’”
“Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, condemned the delegates’ abuse of the UN body as a forum to target Israel.
“Out of 21 items on the meeting’s Agenda, only one—Item No. 14 against Israel—focused on a specific country. There was no agenda item or resolution on any other country, including Syria, where hospitals and medical infrastructure have suffered devastating bombings by Syrian and Russian forces; Yemen, where 19.7 million people lack access to health care service due to the current crisis; or Venezuela, where the health system has collapsed, causing millions to flee the country,” said Neuer.
“Today’s resolution is a fantastic lie. The UN reached new heights of absurdity by enacting a resolution which accuses Israel of violating the health rights of Syrians in the Golan, even as in reality Israeli hospitals provide life-saving treatment to Syrians fleeing to the Golan from the Assad regime’s barbaric attacks,” he said.
“In addition to voting against the resolution, the US, the UK, Germany and Canada took the floor to strongly object to the politicization of the forum.” Click for video
By passing the resolution, the body also adopted a report that points the finger at Israel for increased health and mental health issues stemming from “trauma injuries and exposure to violence during the ‘Great March of Return.” The report completely ignores the leading role of Hamas and other terrorist groups in orchestrating the violent riots and deliberately encouraging demonstrators to approach the hostile area of the Gaza-Israel border.”
Another issue is the wasteful and extravagant spending on travel, including luxury suites and business class travel. An Associated Press article, posted on the NBC News website three years ago (I’m confident this article wouldn’t make it on the NBC News site today), stated:
“According to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press, the WHO ‘routinely has spent about $200 million a year on travel expenses, more than what it doles out to fight some of the biggest problems in public health, including AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.’”
This article by Gatestone author Soeren Kern goes into a number of other issues that reflect badly on the WHO, as well as providing an updated, well documented timeline of the WHO’s active participation in helping China to attempt to avoid responsibility for its lies, deceit and lack of transparency since the Wuhan virus started spreading into a global pandemic.
These other issues that Kern writes about have to do with accusations surrounding WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Tedros), who is accused of covering up cholera epidemics in his home country of Ethiopia:
“In May 2017, when [WHO General Director Dr.] Tedros emerged as the top candidate in a three-way race to lead the WHO, The New York Times reported accusations that Tedros covered up three cholera epidemics in Ethiopia when he was the country’s health minister between 2005 and 2012.”
Tedros became the first non-medical doctor to head up the WHO. According to Kern, “As Ethiopia’s foreign minister, Tedros, an executive member of the Marxist-Leninist Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), oversaw a massive expansion of China’s role in Ethiopia. China is Ethiopia’s biggest foreign investor, its largest trading partner and also its largest lender.”
Finally, Tedros named Zimbabwe’s Marxist leader Robert Mugabe to be a UN Goodwill Ambassador.
Again, from Kern’s article in Gatestone:
“Tedros had praised Zimbabwe as ‘a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies to provide health care to all.’ After global outrage, Tedros rescinded the appointment.”
“Writing for the Sunday Times, Rebecca Myers wrote:
‘Diplomats said [Mugabe’s] appointment was a political payoff from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — the WHO’s first African director-general — to China, a long-time ally of Mugabe, and the 50 or so African states that helped to secure Tedros’s election earlier this year…
“Chinese diplomats had campaigned hard for the Ethiopian, using Beijing’s financial clout and opaque aid budget to build support for him among developing countries.”
The bottom line is that the WHO is a hot political issue right now, in terms of responsibility for the number of deaths from the COVID-19, how they covered and defended China, and helped give credibility to their lies, which were picked up by our media.
You can be certain that none of those media or social media companies participating in the Saturday night extravaganza will look closely at any of these issues. Especially since Trump has gone after the WHO. As with this April 15 NBC News article, “Trump Move to End WHO Funding Amid Coronavirus Fight Criticized by World Leaders,” the tone is definitely anti-Trump and pro-WHO. MSNBC reported that Trump is withholding WHO funds because he is “trying to find a scapegoat,” and that he’s looking for someone other than himself to blame.
These networks and their news organizations have a built-in conflict of interest, and will be acting as a political PAC, attacking Trump, and trying to help the Democrats win back the White House. So, what else is new?
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
