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By Matthew Russell Lee, Periscope, Patreon

UN GATE, Dec 13 – During the protests in Algeria in the run up to the low turn out election, Inner City Press repeatedly submitted written questions to UN Sec-Gen Antonio Guterres and his spokesmen Stephane Dujarric and Farhan Haq, with no answer at all. Because they are corrupt censors.

  Now on December 13, from US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, this: "The United States congratulates Algeria on the recent conclusion of presidential elections.  The United States and Algeria enjoy a mutually respectful and beneficial partnership.  We look forward to working with President-elect Abdelmadjid Tebboune to promote regional security and prosperity.  Over the past year, the Algerian people have voiced their aspirations not just at the ballot box but in the streets, as well.  The United States supports the right of Algerians to peacefully express their views."  The UN, by contrast, doesn't. Guterres loves dictators - he himself has the critical Press roughed up and banned, now 528 days.

After the UN Security Council's failure to even issue elements to the press about the airstrike on the detention center in Libya back in July, and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' typically empty statement while on a junket, on July 5 before Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric's UN Spokesperson's Office sent anything out his partner in censorship Al Jazeera reported a UNSC press statement. Banned Inner City Press noted it - then the French mission, not the president of the Council for July 5, tweeted it, echoed by France 24.

  On August 10 France called an emergency UN Security Council meeting. Inner City Press, still banned from entering the UN by Guterres now for 528 days went to check it out. There was no one in the $15 million mansion Guterres sometimes lives in, here (he's been missing for a week); Inner City Press cannot enter the UN (UN gate Periscope here), but there was only one person at 4:30 pm at the UNSC stakeout. Tweeted photo here.

   Downtown at the SDNY courthouse which Inner City Press now covers daily, Vivian Wang, who as money manager for convicted UN briber Ng Lap Seng's South South News made payments to disgraced President of the UN General Assembly John Ashe, was given a time served sentence on June 26 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge George B. Daniels.

   Wang's lawyers at Goodwin Proctor, in a heavily redacted sentencing submission, stated that her deceased husband Forest Cao "was 57 years old adn had no known health problems of medical conditions. No autopsy was performed."

 It also says, as to UN President of the General Assembly John Ashe, that while awaiting trial on UN bribery charges "his death was reported as the result of a 'weightlifting accident' after a barbell apparently crushed his throat."

  After the sentencing, Inner City Press with covered the Ng Lap Seng trial before SDNY Judge Vernon Broderick daily asked Wang's lawyer Derek A. Cohen if he was implying that Forest Cao and John Ashe were killed, and why he had so heavily redacted this sentencing submission.

 "It speaks for itself," Cohen said by the elevators. Likewise the Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case Daniel C. Richenthal declined Inner City Press' question about who beyond Ng Lap Seng Ms. Wang had cooperated against.

 Judge Daniels did not preside over the trial of Ng Lap Seng. He accepted the government's recommendation of time served with very little inquiry.

  He said as if by rote that corruption of the UN is a serious matter. But if so, why should a person who paid bribes in the UN get such a light sentence with little public showing of the benefit of their cooperation?

   Corruption has continued at the UN since the prosecution of Ng Lap Seng, resulting in his four year prison sentence. A second, separately prosecution was brought against Patrick Ho of CEFC China Energy, an entity which also tried to buy the oil company of Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation which employed current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as a compensated board member.

  Neither in the Ho nor Ng Lap Seng cases where any of the UN Secretariat officials implicated in the bribery schemes prosecuted.

  This laxity can be contrasted with another SDNY proceeding a mere hour later, in which Judge P. Kevin Castel looked behind the U.S. Attorney's Office's 5k1.1 cooperation letters and imposed jail time on the four siblings, the Seggermans, who evaded taxes. That underlying case was USA v. Little, 12-cr-647 (Castel). This bifurcated case is USA v. Wang, 16-cr-495 (Daniels).

 Vivi Wang helped bribe the UN, and on June 26 she got a time served sentence for undefined cooperation. Judge Castel looked behind the government's 5K1.1 letter but Judge Daniels did not. And the UN continues corrupt. Inner City Press will have more, much more, on this.

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