After
UN Sold Itself to Ng Lap Seng,
Event With Guo Xiangang, UN
Spox Won't Answer
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
August 22– After the UN was
exposed as having been bought
and corrupted by Macau-based
businessman Ng Lap Seng,
convicted less than a month
ago on six counts of UN
bribery, money laundering and
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
violations, what has changed?
While the
spokesmen for new Secretary
General Antonio Guterres evade
the questions
asked by Inner City Press, for
example about the UN rewarding
Ng for his South South News'
coverage of Ban Ki-moon's
Central America trip in 2015,
murky uses of the UN and its
building, movement inside
which Inner City Press is still
restricted for its
anti-corruption coverage,
continue.
For
example, on August 23-24 the
UN General Assembly Hall will
be taken over by an NGO named
“World Development Foundation”
headed by Guo Xiangang. Inner
City Press first reported on
this group in May
2016, noting that the UN
Department of Public
Information was partnering
with a group that at that time
did not even have a website.
This came after DPI's
then-chief Cristina Gallach
did no
due diligence of Ng Lap
Seng's purchase of events in
the UN lobby and even its
slavery memorial, then evicted
Inner City Press after it asked her about her links
to Ng's South South Awards.
The UN's holdover Spokesman
Stephane Dujarric has been
involved, including in both
the eviction and continuing
restrictions. On August 22,
Inner City Press asked and
e-mailed Dujarric about the
August 22-24 event. Video here; UN transcript here: Inner
City Press: there's an event
this week in the General
Assembly, and some of the
sponsors are those who
attended the Macau event
sponsored and paid for by Ng
Lap Seng in August 2015 just
before he was indicted and
arrested. So, I wanted
to know — maybe you can find
this out today — it's said
that it's going to be webcast.
Spokesman: What's the
event? I don't, what's
the event?
Inner City Press: The
event has to do with
sustainable tourism.
It's sponsored by an NGO and
two Member States, both of
whom went to Macau. So,
my question to you is, you've
said the things have radically
cleaned up…What's the UN's
role in the event… Who's
paying for the-
Spokesman: I need… drop
me off a piece of paper with
information about the event
and I will…
Inner City Press: I'm going to
give you the email as well,
the one about…
Spokesman: Perfect.
Inner City Press: …Yiping Zhou
and the one that you said you
hadn't seen.
Spokesman: Okay, thank
you.
Inner City
Press immediately sent Dujarric
as well as his top two
deputies the Yiping Zhou email
and some questions. Five hours
later when he left, Dujarric
had not answered or even, as
requested, confirmed receipt.
But there are photos of DPI
officials with Guo Xiangang.
The cover, just as Ng Lap Seng
used the Dominican Republic's
Francis Lorenzo and a number
of other states, in this case
are Suriname and Guyana, both
of whose Permanent
Representatives attended Ng
Lap Seng's Macau event in
August 2015 and were
interviewed by South South
News, here
and here.
This week in attendance will
be the Permanent
Representative of Dominca,
whose Prime Minister Roosevelt
Skerrit was the only head of
state who went to Ng Lap
Seng's Macau event, along with
the vice president of the
United Nations Correspondents
Association.
As Inner City
Press reported and pursued,
the UN Correspondents
Association took payment from
Ng' South South News for full
page ads, then provided the
venue for Ng's and Vivian
Wang's photo op with Ban
Ki-moon. It was for seeking to
cover the UNCA event in the UN
Press Briefing Room, “lent”
without paperwork by Ban's and
Guterres' spokesman Stephane
Dujarric, that Inner City
Press was evicted and is still
restricted.
New DPI chief
Alison Smale will have to deal
with all this - and clean it
up. For now, this is how the
UN under Guterres remains.
Watch this site. Legal
footnote: the prosecution of
Ng Lap Seng was by Assistant
US attorneys Douglas Zolkind,
Janis Echenberg and Daniel
Richenthal of the US
Attorney’s Office, David Last,
on detail with the criminal
division fraud section's FCPA
unit, and Aashna Rao and David
Louison. There are (many)
further exhibits they are
supposed to disclose to the
Press, through spokespeople
Nicholas Biase and Dawn Dearden and
DC. We'll have more on all
this.
***
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
Past
(and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now: Box 20047,
Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in
the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-2017 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
for
|
,
