Matthew Lee

For the professional wrestler, see 2.0 (professional wrestling).

Matthew Lee.
File:Somalitalk.com/2009/may/13/lee100.jpg
Education	Left college to work in soup kitchen, later graduated from Fordham Law School
Occupation	Journalist, author, lawyer
Ethnicity	Caucasian, Chinese-American
Notable credit(s)	founder of two non-profit organizations, Inner City Press and Fair Finance Watch; author of Predatory Bender, among other works; frequent guest on BloggingHeads.tv

Matthew Lee is a public interest lawyer, author, and founder of two non-profit organizations, Inner City Press and Fair Finance Watch.

Both are known for their investigations of the banking industry's treatment of low-income communities of color around the world. Lee produces weekly reports on, and advocates concerning, such global banks as HSBC, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland, Mizuho, and others. In 2005-2006, Lee was engaged in litigation to deem the "citizens-only" provision of the Freedom of Information Act of Delaware (and ten other states) to be unconstitutional.^[1]

Lee is the author of the non-fiction book Predatory Lending: Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City and the novel Predatory Bender. Lee is also an accredited journalist at the United Nations.

In mid-2006, Lee's investigative journalism at the UN, published online in Inner City Press^[2] uncovered and led to the United Nations Development Programme halting its disarmament programs in the Karamoja region of Uganda in response to human rights abuses exposed in the parallel forcible disarmament programs carried out by the Uganda People's Defense Force. For another view, see the Ugandan newspaper The New Vision,^[3] which was critical of UNDP's halt of funding.

Lee is also a frequent video discussion guest on BloggingHeads.tv, discussing things related to United Nations internal operations.

In 2008, Lee appeared on the ninth episode of the sixth season of the show Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. The show discussed "World Peace" and went on a tour that Lee led most of in the UN building. Besides leading the tour, he also discussed some of the actions that the UN takes which are hypocritical, or make little sense.

In 2009, Lee reported extensively on the conflict in Sri Lanka, including critically covering UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's visit to the internally displaced persons' camps in Vavuniya in May 2009. In early 2010, Lee was invited to speak on the topic of Sri Lanka at the Rebellious Lawyers' conference at Yale Law School.

In 2011, Lee exclusively published the UN's internal plan for post-Gaddafi Libya, speaking about it on BBC, Al Jazeera and elsewhere. The portions of the plan providing for UN military observers, for example, were then rejected by the Libyan National Transitional Council.

See also

Novels portal

• Inner City Press
• Fair Finance Watch

References

1. ^ Farrell, Rita K. "Court to Rule on Delaware Public Records Law." New York Times. May 12, 2006. Pg. C10.
2. ^ In Uganda, UNDP's Belated Announcement of Program Halt Leaves Questions Unanswered - Inner City Press, 6/28/06
3. ^ UNDP suspends Karamoja projects - The New Vision, 6/28/06

External links

• "Talk of the Town Dep't of Foreign Relations: The Beat," The New Yorker, September 26, 2011
• "UN 'plan for post-Gaddafi Libya' leaked," Al Jazeera, August 29, 2011
• "A Citizen of the World, At Home in The Bronx," Washington Post, April 17, 2006
• "HSBC 'overcharging' US troops," The Observer (UK), December 18, 2005
• "Wading through the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Muck," US Banker, November 2005
• Review of Predatory Bender
• Another review of Predatory Bender
• Video discussions/debates involving Matthew Lee on BloggingHeads.tv

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Name	Lee, Matthew
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