By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Series
UNITED NATIONS, October 8 – Ban Ki-moon's ambition to be president of South Korea ended amid the indictment of his brother and nephew and their fashion designer colleague Malcolm Harris for UN-related corruption; Ban critic Moon Jae-in won the post. Ban called the indictment "fake news," but Malcolm Harris has now been ordered to pay over $700,000 along with Ban Ki-moon's nephew Dennis Bahn, still set to stand trial, and his brother Ban Ki Sang, who is on the lam in South Korea. Both used their connection to Ban Ki-moon to commit the fraud and Ban and his spokespeople - now "serving" Ban's successor Antonio Guterres - refused to provide any specifics about how much Ban Ki-moon knew, even when the last time he met with his nephew and brother.
Yet the International Olympic Committee tellingly made Ban its ethics officer he was given a seemingly automatic seat on "The Elders," which while horning on in death-less conflicts have been silent, for example, on Cameroon's killings. (Here was Ban smiling taking an award from 35-year Cameroon president Paul Biya.) We'll have more on this - and on yet another Ban scandal, convicted Ng Lap Seng, and on Ban's brother Ban Ki-ho and what Inner City Press exposes as his mining in Myanmar, where yet more people, the Rohnigya, are being slaughtered. Some Elder. Reuters also tellingly previously mis-reported that Ban's nephew Dennis Bahn had pleaded guilty too, although the Department of Justice press release Reuters retyped didn't say that. Ban is also rumored to want back into the North Korea issue, on which he accomplished nothing in his ten years as UN Secretary General. But new information has emerged after the guilty verdict against Macau-based businessman Ng Lap Seng. Inner City Press, which was evicted from Ban's UN for covering the scandal in the UN Press Briefing Room and remains restricted, has begun obtaining the prosecution's full evidence. This includes, as simply the first example, an email showing Ban's UN rewarding Ng with support for his then-planned Macau center after what the UN called positive coverage of Ban's travels. Inner City Press has asked the UN - Ban's former deputy spokesman - about it, here. This is corruption, not ethics. We'll have more on this. Meanwhile as Inner City Press first reported on early May, Ban's Kim Won-soo is trying to parlay the job Ban gave him in UN Disarmament to become head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. But he has six competitors: Tibor Toth of Hungary, Fernando Arias Gonzalez of Spain, Saywan Sabir Mustafa Barzani of Iraq, Jesper Vahr of Denmark, Abdouraman Bary of Burkina Faso and Vaidotas Verba of Lithuania. Will Jeffrey Sachs, who impermissibly endorsed Dho Young-shim for the UN World Tourism Organization also endorse Kim Won-soo? Since the UN is lawless, if not, wy not? Amid this and the now-begun Ng Lap Seng trial about UN bribery pervasive in the Ban Ki-moon era, The Elders have jumped the gun and debased their brand making Ban one of te fold. What's he going to work on (or cover up), mass atrocities like he did in Sri Lanka? Impunity like for his UN bringing cholera to Haiti? We'll have more on this.Harris "pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a bribery case that involves a brother and nephew of former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. [He] entered his plea to money laundering and wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in federal court in Manhattan. Harris is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 27." During the General Assembly week. Ban and his family, which used Ban and the UN to try to sell real estate, are corrupt. But in continued search for a consolation prize, Ban has announced "I am deeply honoured to be nominated as the Chair of the IOC’s Ethics Commission and accept the position with a sense of humility and responsibility. The United Nations and the International Olympic Committee have had a close working relationship over many years with both organisations contributing to building a peaceful and better world. In working closely under the principles of the IOC movement, I will do my best to enhance the accountability and transparency of the IOC." But Ban brought neither accountability nor transparency to the UN; he has left two separate bribery cases in his wake, and continued censorship. We'll have more on this. After Moon Jae-in nominated Ms. Kyung-wha Kang, who worked for and with Ban at the UN and physically witnessed the Ban's Department of Public Information's eviction of Inner City Press, as his nominee for foreign minister, her nomination is increasingly slowed by corruption issues, some of them UN-related. Ban is sinking lower, trolling the committees of the Massachusetts state house for praise, while babbling that "'Having read what he said is misguiding and misleading the truthful effects, so U.S. should be part of this.' Ban clarified he was referring to Trump." Oh. He's gotten a Christian college Yonsei University in Seoul to hire him, claiming he's a scientist. He's announced in advance where he'll appear in October: the "Tax Free World Association," here. Will he be paid? Or is tax-evasion just another topic, like censorship, close to his heart? Ban Ki-moon is corrupt, and corrupted those around him. On June 7 Kang was grilled, now including for plagiarizing her doctoral thesis and on a second home on Geoje Island, South Gyeongsang Province, real estate speculation, widespread in Ban Ki-moon's circle of family and, like Kang, friends. Another common denominator is double talk. Kang said of the comfort women deal Ban praised, “From the standpoint of a person who had been involved in human rights affairs at the UN, I found it to be very strange in many aspects. Doubts linger over whether it was surely reached with a victims-oriented approach." But there is no evidence Kang mentioned any of the strange aspects before Ban praised the deal. This is noted by those still at the UN, like those in the Administration 200 miles south: the statements and actions of the boss may be attributed to you. And how can Kang claim as her qualification her deep involvement with Ban at the UN and then distance herself from what was done, and not done? Beyond Ban and for example Cristina "The Evicter" Gallach, who else in Ban's administration was tied up in corruption? Some of it goes back to the 2006 line-up in South Korea's Mission to the UN, which included, it seems, later Ban campaign spokesman Lee Do-woon (audio) as well as Kang just before her first UN system posting.
