One for the Ages: U.N. Official Uses Two Birthdates
The phrase “born again” is taking on a whole new meaning in a scandal now brewing at a little-known but important United Nations agency based in Switzerland, where an auditor has disc...
Oil-for-Food Programme
At the United Nations, the Curious Career of Maurice Strong
Before the United Nations can save the planet, it needs to clean up its own house. And as scandal after scandal has unfolded over the past decade, from Oil for Food to procurement fraud to peacek...
Op-eds
Will the U.N. Development Program Probe Be Ban Ki-Moon’s First Cover-Up?
For just one day last week, it looked like Ban, in the first real test of his self-proclaimed mission to “restore trust” at the U.N., had risen above the bureaucratic evasions of his...
Op-eds
UNder the Law
In what surely qualifies as the single-most-promising United Nations reform effort to date, federal prosecutors in New York, jointly with the New York District Attorney, have just announced the i...
Op-eds
Ban’s Burden
As the new secretary general of the UN, South Korea's Ban Ki-moon faces a choice: style himself as the next self-serving pop star of global diplomacy or dedicate himself more humbly and brav...
Op-eds
Mystery Surfaces Over Apartment of Kofi Annan
As Secretary-General Annan prepares to leave his post at the United Nations, a mystery is surfacing surrounding his apartment on Roosevelt Island, subsidized by New York taxpayers, which is still...
Op-eds
Plunder Down Under
At United Nations headquarters, Secretary General Kofi Annan likes to imply that the Oil-for-Food era is over (“If there was a scandal” was his locution earlier this year). But Down U...
Op-eds
The Courtier to Annan
Not so long ago, Kofi Annan was up to his ears in the Oil for Food scandal, and his legacy as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations was on its way down the drain. He was ducking que...
Op-eds
After Annan
Authored by Velykhan Velshi Kofi Annan's tenure as UN Secretary General will finish at the end of the year. His legacy will be one of scandal and failure. The UN peacekeepi...
Op-eds
Will the UN Pick Another Crook?
Authored by Alykhan Velshi Kofi Annan's tenure as UN Secretary General will finish at the end of the year. His legacy will be one of scandal and failure. The UN peacekeepin...
Op-eds
About that Mercedes
Remember Kojo Annan's Mercedes? The car that reporters kept asking about last year, finally sending Kofi Annan into a temper tantrum at a televised press conference? I'm talking of cour...
Op-eds
Excess Baggage
Despite today's United Nations deadline for Iran to give up its nuclear bomb program, Iran has done no such thing. The next diplomatic move is supposed to be for the U.N. to impose sanctions...
Op-eds
Crowning of Nasrallah? – Annan’s Diplomacy Harms the Cause of Peace
BRACE YOURSELF. In the United Nations-brokered farce known as the "cessation of hostilities in Lebanon," we may now be heading for the moment in which Secretary General Kofi Annan jets to Beirut...
Op-eds
Who’s Dissin’ Whom
As Israel fights to defend itself against the Iranian-and-Syrian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah, are we really seeing a reckless, damaging and — yes — disproportionate response?...
Op-eds
Central Park
While the United Nations frames its next response to crisis in the Middle East, its last grand venture in that region -- Oil for Food -- has finally resulted in a guilty verdict in open court. La...
Op-eds
Guilty!
Oil-for-Food has had its first airing in federal court, and the verdict is in. South Korean businessman Tongsun Park was accused of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein�...
Op-eds
No Free Parking
The United Nations keeps promising transparency. But for a real window on the U.N., skip the pronouncements of Turtle Bay. The better place to look right now is the federal courtroom in lower Man...
Op-eds
The Unreality of U.N. Reform
Not to be outdone by his own ruckus-raising deputy, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself is now instructing the U.S. on how to treat t...
Op-eds
Putin and Russia’s Middle Eastern Policy
Auhtored by Ilya Bourtman Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently pursuing a two track policy towards the Middle East, allowing Russia to develop friendly ties with Israel...
Op-eds
How Corrupt is the United Nations?
Recent years have brought a cascade of scandals at the United Nations, of which the wholesale corruption of the Oil-for-Food relief program in Iraq has been only the most visible. We still do not...