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By Matthew Russell Lee, New Series

UNITED NATIONS, February 8 – Ban Ki-moon left the UN on December 31, after dodging Press questions about corruption and, in fact, evicting and restricting Inner City  Press. (Even 38 days later, Ban's photo is still the one on the wall of the UN's Uganda office, here. Cult of personality?)

  Tellingly Ban's first move in early January was to take legal action against the press. Before he left, he named his own son in law Siddarth Chatterjee to the top UN top in Kenya.

  In South Korea, Ban Ki-moon's campaign to run for president failed on February 1, as his long decade of corruption and censorship were quickly exposed (see Sisa Journal, and this in English from Hankyoreh, including Inner City Press' reporting on Ban's brother Ban Ki Ho mining in Myanmar, listed by the government as part of a "UN delegation").

   Now this, from the Korea Herald, echoing what Inner City Press found and reported about Ban Ki-moon at the UN, leading it its eviction one year ago and restriction still:

"Young, working-level diplomats were aghast at some of their retired and even incumbent seniors rallying behind the former foreign minister. Some senior officials rushed to New York to 'help Ban return home,' while others churned out videos, photos and memos via Facebook and Kakao Talk in an overwhelming, worshipping-like fashion, extolling the secretary-general’s legacy and personal character." (Yes, failed cult of personality.)

"One official, who worked with Ban and is now nearing retirement, had initially given up an ambassadorial position due to his daughter’s US citizenship, which disqualifies him for the job. With Ban’s ratings soaring, together with his own chances to serve the next administration, he recently changed his mind and persuaded his daughter, who is married and lives in New York, to abandon her citizenship. Rather disenchanted with the 'Ban syndrome,' meanwhile, a group of working-level diplomats had initiated a signature-collecting campaign against his presidential run."

  Then on February 1, barely three weeks after Ban Ki-moon returned to South Korea, amid mounting corruption charges Ban Ki-moon dropped out of the race he long used the UN for.

   He said, apparently without irony, "I have decided to fold my pure-hearted plan."

   His claims to have known nothing about the charges against his nephew Dennis Bahn and brother Ban Ki Sang make no sense, given that Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson about them, for example at the May 15, 2015 noon briefing on UNTV. It won't be the Blue House (South Korea's presidential mansion) - could it be the jail house?

  On January 30, Inner City Press staked out the annual meeting of the United Nations Correspondents Association, a group which had made Ban Ki-moon their guest of honor at a $1200 a plate dinner on Wall Street on December 16, 2016. Inner City Press asked if the honor should be revoked. One correspondent said yes.

  It was the previous year, on January 29, 2016, that Inner City Press went to cover and live-stream the UN Correspondents Association's annual meeting held in the UN Press Briefing Room. Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric, still somehow at the UN, at the request of UNCA big wigs asked Inner City Press to leave, without showing any paperwork that the event was "closed."

  Inner City Press asked for the basis, but said if a single UN security officer asked it to leave, it would. An officer arrived and said, The spokesman wants you out. Inner City Press left, and wrote the story and uploaded the video.

  Three weeks later Ban's head of communications Cristina Gallach, still promoting herself at the UN even for an event in March 2017, ordered Inner City Press out of the UN after ten years, with no hearing, no appeal. At her (and Ban's) direction Inner City Press' files were thrown in the street, and its office is being given to an Egyptian state media Akhbar al Yom whose correspondent Sanaa Youssef rarely comes to the UN and never asks questions (but is a past president of UNCA). This is disgusting and must be reversed.

  Ban's spokesman Dujarric canceled the February 1 noon briefing, ostensibly in exchange for an 11 am stakeout by Ban's successor Antonio Guterres. We'll have more on this.

  In 2016 Ban's UN spokespeople repeatedly told Inner City Press that Ban was "all UN" until January 1. But now Ban has said he decided in December. On January 25, Inner City Press asked Ban's lead UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here and below.

  And on January 26, when Inner City Press asked about efforts to ascertain with whom Ban met, using the UN, spokesman Dujarric claimed that daily schedules which are taken offline are in fact online. Video here. From the UN transcript:

Inner City Press:  there are some in the South Korean media asking to know where it's available to find the daily schedules that are put up every day.  Are they just thrown out, or is there some repository of who met with the Secretary-General…?

Spokesman:  Well, I'm glad you're… you've asserted a role as the Spokesman for the South Korean media but they can look on the website, and everything should be archived.

  Where? Meanwhile, Dujarric threatened Sisa Journal in South Korea for its reporting (he said it wasn't a threat.)

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