African Countries Press U.N. Agency to Establish Award Honoring One of the ‘World’s Worst’ Despots

CNSNews.com A year after the U.S. successfully blocked an attempt to have a U.N. agency create an international life sciences award named for an African dictator, the issue is back on the agenda. The autocrat – who now chairs the African Union and has the continent’s support – wants the initiative to move ahead. The executive board of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), currently in session in Paris, later this week will consider a request by African members to set up the prize in honor of Teodoro Obiang, the president of Equatorial Guinea.
UNESCO, whose stated aim is to promote global understanding through culture, education and science, agreed in 2008 to establish the life sciences award named for, and funded by, Obiang.
The aim of the proposed $3-million “Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences” is to reward research leading to “improving the quality of human life.”