By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 14 -- The sale at auction of a six-week internship in the UN has been completed; the bidding just closed. The winner, identified as "m.alam," bid $26,000 on May 3.
Inner City Press, before that, first exposed the sale of the internship in the UN, and asked the UN about it. At first the UN said that since it was IN but not FOR the UN, it was not problem.
Then the UN said that its Office of Legal Affairs was seeking out the Non-Governmental Organization at issue, then that the advertisement had been amended.
But it still showed the UN Headquarters and said that the winner would learn how the UN really works -- indeed -- and make invaluable connections.
Inner City Press asked the spokesperson for RFK Center, whose RFK Young Leaders is the beneficiary, with whom such connections were being sold -- without answer.
But Inner City Press' coverage was picked up and credited in Talk Radio News Service and on AlJazeera.com, among other places.
The auction web site CharityBuzz listed the value of the internship at $10,000. How? Not only unpaid - an internship a person, or their parents, pays for.
Inner City Press' research finds that "m.alam" had bid on other internships, for example with Rolling Stone magazine. Where would the "connections" be better?
It has been implied to Inner City Press that the UN might ban the buyer (here, "m.alam" from entering the UN. We'll see. Watch this site.
