John Oliver Visits Africa for 'Epic' UNESCO Segment

He ridicules US decision to cut off funds
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 16, 2012 10:30 AM CDT

John Oliver looks into the US decision to cut off funding to UNESCO.
(Hulu)

The Daily Show made the rare decision to forego a guest last night in favor of a John Oliver piece that, according to Jon Stewart, was "so epic that it could not be contained." Oliver looked into the US move to cut off funding to UNESCO, the UN's global charity group, because of its decision to induct Palestine as a member. "UNESCO didn't care about the unfortunate circumstance they put America in," Oliver lamented. "All they cared about was some poor starving people."

Oliver felt confident that the US had sent an appropriate message—"Now unless UNESCO does what we want, they're gonna fold like a badly needed irrigation project"—until he heard that Gabon had stepped in to donate $2 million. So he traveled to Gabon to confront these "tyrannical philanthropists" and their "classic Gabonese imperialism." The result? Well he wound up trying to steal textbooks from school children, and getting chased out of a classroom by angry university students. His conclusion: The US could change its laws to fund UNESCO. "But we're not going to do that. Because we're dicks." (More John Oliver stories.)

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