{"id":12507,"date":"2012-07-18T00:55:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T22:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/unesco-awards-equatorial-guinea-prize-despite-outcry\/"},"modified":"2012-07-18T00:55:41","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T22:55:41","slug":"unesco-awards-equatorial-guinea-prize-despite-outcry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/unesco-awards-equatorial-guinea-prize-despite-outcry\/","title":{"rendered":"UNESCO awards Equatorial Guinea prize despite outcry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Rights groups opposed prize sponsored by African leader<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Equatorial Guinea&#8217;s Obiang and family accused of<br \/>\ncorruption<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Name of prize changed to omit his name<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>PARIS, July 17 (Reuters) &#8211; The United Nations&#8217; cultural and<br \/>\nscience body UNESCO handed out a prize sponsored by the<br \/>\npresident of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday, defying<br \/>\ncampaigners&#8217; calls not to do so because of corruption<br \/>\nallegations against Teodoro Obiang.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>France and other European countries boycotted a ceremony in<br \/>\nParis to award the prize, unimpressed by a decision to change<br \/>\nits name to remove any reference to the president himself.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Three scientific researchers, from Egypt, Mexico and South<br \/>\nAfrica, working on vaccine development, food scarcity in Africa<br \/>\nand parasitic diseases won $100,000 each in prize money.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A statement by seven rights groups, including Human Rights<br \/>\nWatch, called the award &#8220;shameful and utterly irresponsible&#8221; and<br \/>\nwarned that the UNESCO risked tarnishing its credibility.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>President Obiang, who had been scheduled to come for the<br \/>\nceremony, did not attend. It was also skipped by UNESCO Director<br \/>\nGeneral Irina Bokova, who had publicly voiced her opposition to<br \/>\nthe prize.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Despite calls to abandon it, the governing council of<br \/>\nParis-based UNESCO voted by 33 to 18 with six abstentions to<br \/>\napprove awarding what was originally called the &#8220;UNESCO-Obiang<br \/>\nprize&#8221; but renamed the &#8220;UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International<br \/>\nPrize for Research in the Life Sciences&#8221;.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Rights groups opposed prize sponsored by African leader * Equatorial Guinea&#8217;s Obiang and family accused of corruption * Name of prize changed to omit his name PARIS, July 17 (Reuters) &#8211; The United Nations&#8217; cultural and science body UNESCO handed out a prize sponsored by the president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday, defying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}