In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 18 – North Korea's nuclear moves were taken up at the Munich Security Conference, with former Australian prime minister (and last minute UN Secretary General candidate) Kevin Rudd summarizing panelists' statements and taking questions from the floor.

  Rudd asked Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan how many miles it is, from Russia to Alaska. Was it a trick or trolling question? After a pause, Sullivan answered: "Four."

 South Korea's foreign minister Yun Byung-Se urged no rush back to negotiate with North Korea. From the floor, Japan brought up abductions. China's Fu Ying said her country is implementing UNSC sanctions, but that talks are needed. Another questioner from the floor quoted "Trump and one of his famous tweets, 'IT WON'T HAPPEN.'"

 (Meanwhile a UN official who evicted the Press without hearing or appeal virtual-signaled in the same medium about Merkel standing up to Pence on press freedom. The hypocrisy of today's UN is boundless.)

Earlier in the week after North Korea's missile launch, Japan's Mission to the UN tweeted that it had requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting along with South Korea and the United States.

  And even before the meeting a Press Statement was agreed to. Sweden tweeted it first; Inner City Press asked the Council's president for February Ukraine to confirm it was agreed before the meeting and they did.

  Inner City Press asked Japan's Ambassador Koro Bessho if any member had brought up the THAAD missile deployment by the US in South Korea. He told Inner City Press to ask the country it thinks may have raised it. Watch this site.

  While that meeting took place, this from US Ambassador Nikki Haley on the North Korean Missile launch: “We call on all members of the Security Council to use every available resource to make it clear to the North Korean regime – and its enablers – that these launches are unacceptable. It is time to hold North Korea accountable – not with our words, but with our actions.”

  Under Samantha Power, the US Mission was selective in how it doled out information, and ignored the UN's eviction and ongoing restriction on the Press which reports on UN corruption.  This should be changing, but hasn't yet. Watch this site.

After North Korea conducted its last  nuclear test, the UN Security Council met on September 9 and issued a Press Statement.

  Inner City Press asked South Korea's then-Ambassador Oh Joon (who went on to support Ban Ki-moon's failed campaign for South Korea's presidency) if the THAAD deployment didn't in some sense escalate things. Pressed, Oh Joon said, “China's nuclear deterrence doesn't have anything to do with this issue.”

Now on November 30 a new resolution passed 15-0 (full text on Scribd here), after the US election, with the Obama administration and US Power and Mission in lame duck status.

Both China and Russia spoke against the deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea. But even the word wasn't mentioned in the three questions pre-picked by Samantha Power's spokesman (Reuters, Kyoto, KBS), much less in the answers. More was said of South Korean Ambassador Oh Joon flying to Korea tonight - to work on a Ban Ki-moon presidential campaign? Inner City Press asked, but it was not answered at the end.

Ban Ki-moon came to speak, which he doesn't do on other countries - essentially, video for a run for President of South Korea. US Samantha Power, when she mentioned the ban on monuments sales, cited only Robert Mugabe and Laurent Kabila, not those of other US allies.

Afterward at the stakeout, asked by KBS what chance these new “statue” sanctions have of stopping North Korea, Power made dubious analogies to sanctions not only on Iran but also South Africa and Serbia. It's a problem from hell, including these unfettered journalists who want to ask non pre-picked questions...

  But it'd be “prohibiting member states from buying North Korean made statues. The DPRK has developed a cottage industry building statues in numerous African states, mostly via the Pyongyang-based Mansundae Art Studio. Mansudae’s work can be seen in Cambodia, Angola, Benin, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, and Togo.”

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Past (and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2017 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for