It’s Time to Add Syria to Kofi Annan’s Long List of Failures
It should have raised red flags when both Syria and Russia approved of Kofi Annan’s February 23 appointment as the Uni...
Paul Volcker
Goldstone Returns
Richard Goldstone’s anti-Israel bias could once again have grave results.
Op-eds
Bad Faith Actor
In the pantheon of United Nations causes, Africa by many measures occupies a preeminent role. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has described “the African challenge” as “the highest...
Op-eds
The Truth About U.N.’s Iran Sanctions
When the United Nations Security Council passed its latest sanctions resolution on Iran, on June 9, President Barack Obama hailed it as "the toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian governmen...
Op-eds
Hot Tips on UN Waste, Fraud and Abuse: U.S. Mission Posts Scores of UN Internal Reports
Hot tip for any reporters interested in newly disclosed documents on waste, fraud and abuse at the United Nations: Just days after I queried the U.S. Mission to the UN about its commitme...
Op-eds
The U.N.’s ‘Alliance of Civilizations’
Obama has chosen a murky venue for his venture into Middle East politics.
Op-eds
The Appeasers
Winston Churchill: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
Op-eds
The U.N.’s Man of Mystery
Is the godfather of the Kyoto treaty a public servant or a profiteer?
Op-eds
Scandal Central
The United Nations likes to sell itself as a mentor of good governance. But the recent deep-sixing of a damning in-house report suggests it might more honestly advertise itself as an example of h...
Op-eds
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
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
Opportunity Lost
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan delivered his farewell speech Monday, squandering yet another opportunity to apologize for his failures and come clean about the U.N. Instead, he used...
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
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
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 U.N.’s Day in Court
While United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has already dismissed the Oil-for-Food scandal as over and done, within the wood-paneled walls of a Manhattan courtroom it has just come to life....
Op-eds
UN Headquarters Renovation: No Accountability Without Transparency
Download full testimony here...