ICP Publishes UN Audit of Ng & South South News, Starts Days After UNCA Ball
By Matthew Russell Lee, Full Text Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, April 6 -- The UN's unwillingness to address the obvious corruption of South South News, to which it has given awards and Ban Ki-moon photo ops via its UN Correspondents Association, and whose Ng Lap Seng bought documents from Ban's Secretariat, has become even more clear -- though not in the UN's favored media.
While the UN tries to blunt the corruption scandal by handing first questions and more to Reuters, Inner City Press is today putting online, as a full text exclusive, the actual Office of Internal Oversight Services audit of the Global Sustainability Foundation and David Ng Lap Seng's Sun Kian Ip Foundation and, at least preliminarily, South South News.
The audit does list South South News - but conveniently decided to begin review only on January 1 2012 -- days after UNCA provided Ng Lap Seng a photo op with Ban Ki-moon in December 2011 in Cipriani's Wall Street, after accepting money from South South News. There is more, here.
On April 5, Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson if the Ng Lap Seng related World Harmony Foundation is, as it appeared, still a member of the UN Global Company, ironically about transparency, six months after the indictment of Ng. From the UN transcript:
Inner City Press: is the World Harmony Foundation, linked to Ng Lap Seng and Frank Liu, still a member of the Global Compact? Because on my computer, it still is. And I'm wondering, since the audit, has the Global Compact taken any steps to make sure that Ng Lap Seng affiliates are not promoting human rights for the UN?
Deputy Spokesman Haq: Certainly, I'll check on whether the World Harmony Foundation is still part of the Global Compact. I'd need to check with the Global Compact office on that.
Haq never returned with an answer, which in context showed what the answer was. When after Haq presided over a three ring circus of obfuscation by UNCA -- now the UN's Censorship Alliance -- board members from Reuters, France 24 and AFP, Inner City Press managed to ask him, did he have an answer on World Harmony Foundation?
In fact he did, though he had not bothered to convey it to Inner City Press and apparently never would have, if not asked again at a noon briefing. The World Harmony Foundation is still a member of the UN Global Compact, six months after the indictment. We'll have more on this.
Even as the Government Accountability Project writes to Ban K-moon to protest his Secretariat's "crude and heavy handed" retaliation against Inner City Press for its questions, four honchos of the UN Correspondents Association were allowed by Ban's Office of the Spokesperson on April 6 to use the briefing to directly address Inner City Press, complete with canned applause.
Ban's deputy spokesperson Haq handed the first question to Reuters' Lou Charbonneau, who have been outed secretly lobbying to get Inner City Press out of the UN for not accepting theft of exclusives; he handed it over to a France 24 correspondent then -- see a trend here? - to Agence France Presse.
Finally Haq allowed Charbonneau's reporter Michelle Nichol to make an outright statement to / at Inner City Press, in the briefing, followed by canned applause. Here is a petition of 1,280 people in the real world to Ban to restore what was crudely taken.
On April 4, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric gave the first question and the audit to Reuters bureau chief Louis Charbonneau, to try to take the sting out of this question.
But Reuters has an obvious conflict of interest: it has an essentially permanent seat on the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association, which took South South News' money and gave its funder Ng Lap Seng a photo op with Ban Ki-moon.
Reuters' story mentioned South South News but did not disclose its connection to the company and scandal. Inner City P
Título original
OIOS Audit of Ng & South South News, OIOS Cut Out Ban Photo Op with Ng at UNCA Ball
ICP Publishes UN Audit of Ng & South South News, Starts Days After UNCA Ball
By Matthew Russell Lee, Full Text Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, April 6 -- The UN's unwillingness to address th…