U.N. goes mum on access to Copenhagen

United Nations headquarters in New York

WASHINGTON – The media coordinator for the U.N. climate change convention in Copenhagen next week has failed to respond to a letter from WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah challenging his refusal to issue press credentials to the world's largest English-language independent Internet news agency.

Axel Wuestenhagen admitted in his denial letter earlier this week that after weeks of deliberation on the matter, he consulted with U.N. officials in New York to make a decision about WND's request.

"Having now reviewed the application and in consultation with the Media and Accreditation Unit in New York, regrettably, we are not in a position to grant accreditation in this instance," he wrote. "As a for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit Western Journalism Center, we follow the U.N. guidelines on accreditation which specifies that advocacy publications of nongovernmental or nonprofit organizations do not qualify for media accreditation. Please note that the organization is under no obligation to accept your request if it does not meet U.N. standards and requirements for press accreditation."

In response, Farah said the U.N. is grasping at straws for grounds to deny the news organization admittance to the convention – including completely bogus information about WND's structure.

"Time is short, so I am responding directly as the founder and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily to your complete misrepresentations as to WorldNetDaily's structure and independence as a news organization.

"WorldNetDaily is NOT, as you mistakenly assert, a for-profit subsidiary of the Western Journalism Center. Neither is it an advocacy organization, though, like all news organizations, it does publish a broad spectrum of opinion – we believe, in fact, the broadest ideological spectrum of any news organization in the world," he continued. "Neither has WorldNetDaily ever been a subsidiary of Western Journalism Center or any other organization."

Farah continued: "The website WorldNetDaily.com began as a project of the Western Journalism Center in 1997. In 1999, the website was spun off as a completely independent for-profit corporation with no legal connection to its former parent. That was 10 years ago. I speak authoritatively on this subject as the founder of BOTH organizations, though I, like my company, WorldNetDaily, have no connection to the Western Journalism Center today."

Farah also pointed out that many nonprofit news organizations have already been cleared for coverage of the Copenhagen convention, including the world's largest, the Associated Press.

"Now that you have been made aware of the facts, we look forward to an expeditious approval of Dr. Corsi's credentials for coverage," he concluded.

"If you have any more questions about our history or organization, I stand ready to address them so that our correspondent can make plans to be in Copenhagen."

The convention, billed as a world-shaking event and a major step forward in "global governance," begins Monday.

Farah also points out that Corsi, as a senior staff writer for WND, was previously accredited for coverage of the U.N. He was admitted as a member of the press to cover Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first address to the U.N. as president of Iran and for the appearance of President Bush.

Corsi is a two-time No. 1 New York Times bestselling nonfiction author and has served as a full-time senior staff writer for WND for many years. He is also an expert on energy and politics – the two topics on the agenda of the climate change convention.

WND has already threatened the U.N. with legal action if the ban on Corsi is upheld.

"I vow that we will pursue all legal options to ensure that the free press is respected by these unaccountable global institutions," said Farah. "If WND is not permitted to cover a global event of this magnitude, the rights of all news organizations are threatened in the New World Order organizers hope to establish in Copenhagen," Farah said.

Recently, the first president of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy, affirmed in a speech captured by the BBC his belief that "2009 is the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step toward the global management of our planet."

Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, asserts the real purpose of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18 is to use concern over "global warming" as a pretext to lay the foundation for a one-world government.

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen "a treaty will be signed," Monckton told a Minnesota Free Market Institute audience at Bethel University in St. Paul.

"Your president will sign it," he said. "Most of the Third World countries will sign it, because they think they're going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes from the European Union will rubber-stamp it. Virtually nobody won't sign it."

He has warned the proposal would cede U.S. sovereignty, mandate a massive wealth transfer from the United States to pay reparations for "climate debt" to Third World countries and create a new "world government" to enforce the treaty's provisions.

Meanwhile, as WND reported, documents and e-mails retrieved by a computer hacker from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit indicate top climate-change scientists have manipulated data to hide cooling trends and worked together to marginalize scientists with opposing views.

The U.S. Senate's leading global-warming skeptic says he plans to demand an investigation into the allegedly fraudulent data manipulation unveiled at the highly influential British research center.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said he knew scientists were "cooking" information years ago. The e-mails, he said, were the proof, and now something needs to be done.

"It is pretty serious," Inhofe said. "And since, you know, Barbara Boxer is the chairman and I'm the ranking member on Environment and Public Works, if nothing happens in the next seven days when we go back into session a week from today that would change this situation, I will call for an investigation."

Inhofe said he would ask for an investigation into the United Nations and its climate-change committee "on the way they cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."

To contact Axel Wuestenhagen of the U.N., e-mail him here.

If you're a member of the press and would like to interview Joseph Farah, e-mail [email protected].