FDD

Claudia Rosett on the U.N.

"In January, the U.N. swore in its eighth Secretary General, Ban-Ki Moon of South Korea. Mr. Ban takes the helm of an organization which has been roiled by conflict and criticized for peacekeeping failures and mismanagement,” writes ForaTV, a new online source of public affairs programming, in its weekly Think Tank feature.

“He has promised managerial reform, and a new spirit of cooperation with the major powers, but will it be enough to restore the reputation of the world's only forum for nations to constructively work out their differences and maintain international order? And with no power over the member states, is it possible for any U.N. Secretary to deliver true reform? Where does the U.N. go from here?”

ForaTV asked FDD’s Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett whether the U.N. has lost its way. Her video response is available here.

For more information on Claudia’s work exposing the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, please click here.

Claudia Rosett Investigates Former U.N. Envoy to North Korea

In a detailed expose on FOX News, FDD’s Claudia Rosett traces the “long and murky” career of Maurice Strong, one of the U.N.’s most controversial figures. Strong, who stepped down in 2005 as the UN.’s special envoy to North Korea, played a key role in “what the U.N. has become today” — from Oil-for-Food to the latest scandals involving U.N. funding in North Korea.

During his career, Strong launched a number of large-scale projects and dubious reforms that, Rosett reports, “nurtured the U.N.’s natural tendencies to grow like kudzu into a system that now extends far beyond its own organizational chart. In this jungle, it is not only tough to track how the money is spent, but almost impossible to tally how much really rolls in — or  flows through — and from where, and for what.”

“All this,” Rosett explains in her article, “is just a sampling of the tangled nest of personal relationships, public-private partnerships, murky trust funds, unaudited funding conduits, and inter-woven enterprises that the modern U.N. has come to embody — and which Maurice Strong has done so much to create.”

North Korea

As host country of and chief donor to the U.N., surely the United States has the right -- maybe even the obligation -- to raise the question of why North Korea, on its present course, should be allowed to remain in the U.N. at all.

Continue reading Claudia Rosett's column in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Man Behind U.N. Oil-for Food

Benon Sevan, the mastermind behind the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, was recently indicted by federal prosecutors in New York. Charged with conspiring to commit fraud and taking close to $160,000 in bribes, he could face a prison sentence of up to 50 years.

FDD Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett discusses Sevan's indictment -- which she describes as "the single-most-promising United Nations reform effort to date" -- in a fascinating article in today's NRO.

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 in use by the family of his brother, Kobina Annan. FDD Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett raises serious questions about the Annan apartment in today's New York Sun.

What to do about the UN (AV)

FDD Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett, who has been intrepid in her reporting on corruption at the UN, offers some shrewd commentary on efforts to reform the UN.

Read the full post.

The next UN Secretary General (AV)

Not quite Koreagate, and as far as we can tell Tongsun Park is not involved, but there is a new chapter in the ongoing bribery of the United Nations apparatus.

Ban Ki-moon, former Foreign Affairs Minister of South Korea, is a leading contender to become the new United Nations Secretary General. This is troubling because he is, frankly, the status quo candidate and is leading in the straw polls, although the lead is not insurmountable.

According to AsiaNews, the government of South Korea may be trying to boost Ban's candidacy through bribery. Last year, South Korea increased its foreign aid budget by 50%, and most of that money has gone to Tanzania and Ghana, both members of the UN Security Council. It is still secret which other countries whose votes are crucial to Ban Ki-Moon's success are receiving additional funds from the South Korean government.

The United States has not yet endorsed a candidate for the Secretary General position. US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Kristen Silverberg has said that, “There is not a consensus Asian candidate right now and I don’t see signs of one emerging, honestly, right now…But if there’s an Asian candidate who’s the strongest candidate and meets our criteria, then we are obviously prepared to support that person.”

The United States needs to make a power-play fast, otherwise a Secretary General opposed to UN reform, and hostile to the policy of spreading democracy and human rights, might be elected. So far, only two candidates seem to meet the exacting guidelines that should guide U.S. policy: Nirj Deva and Ashraf Ghani.

Nirj was elected to the European Parliament, where he distinguished himself as a leading Atlanticist. Originally from Sri Lanka, but lately of the UK and Belgium, he has what it takes to unite United Nations member states behind a positive program of reform.

Ashraf Ghani is also very good. He was nominated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to be UN Secretary General. He served as Afghanistan's finance minister during the crucial reconstruction period, and Emerging Markets magazine voted him Asia's best finance minister in 2003. He has what it takes to strengthen economic development in the poorest UN countries.

Either way, neither are seeking to corrupt the UN system through soft-bribery and both will be massive improvements over the status quo. The U.S. delegation to the UN needs to recognize this as it lobbies member states to vote for the next UN Secretary General.

FDD Media Roundup

Pham & Krauss argue that the ceasefire in the conflict in Lebanon "is really the intermission after the first act of an ongoing drama."

FDD Student Fellow Ilya Bourtman studies the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship.

Walid Phares and Claudia Rosett discuss the implications of a UN ceasefire here and here.

Is Reuter's Hijacking Lebanon's Answer to the UN? (WP)

A few hours after a Franco-American draft for a UN Security Council resolution was released, pro-Hezbollah lobbies and allies launched a campaign to hijack the response of Lebanon to the United Nations. As noted by seasoned observers, the campaign started at the top with an alert release by News Agency Reuters written by Lin Noueihed. The article, put out early Sunday has reached the four corners of the Globe and its title has framed the position of the Lebanese people in a "no" to the UN expected resolution. Amazingly enough, Lin Noueihid titles her release "Lebanon rejects draft UN resolution." But when you read the release you realize that the "representative" of all of Lebanon in the eyes of the Reuters reporter is no one other than pro-Syrian, Hezbollah ally, Nabih Berri, the leader of Shiite Movement Amal.    
                  
Noueihid wrote that "Lebanon rejects a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to end 26 days of fighting because it would allow Israeli forces to remain on Lebanese soil, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Sunday." Basing her entire report on one of the most powerful supporters of the Syrian occupation and who heads a militia allied to Hezbollah, Noueihid gives Berri the full power of the credibility of Reuters. This title will find itself printed from Yahoo to the last local newsletter in the Fidji islands. Evidently, local editors around the world trust Reuters as they trust the Red Cross, and will conclude that indeed "Lebanon" has rejected a UN resolution, while in reality, it is Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis that rejected it, and unfortunately a Reuters writer framed it otherwise.

The UN Security Council Resolution Regarding Israel-Hezbollah Conflict (WP)

The current consensus within the United Nations Security Council on the resolution to address the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is the result of a review of four positions and the selection of the middle way between all the latter:

Hezbollah: Yes to a cease fire, and only cease fire, leaving open the question of disengagement. Hezbollah, Iran and Syria wants to stop the Israeli campaign, rearm and reorganize; but also concentrate their pressure on the Lebanese Government to crumble it and replace it with a pro-Hezbollah cabinet. 

Seniora Lebanese Government: (The so-called 7 points plan). Yes to a cease fire with measures on the ground that would be considered as a disengagement. Yes in principle to the idea of a multinational role without many details nor a discussion of Hezbollah's arms.

The French position Yes to a cease fire, a disengagement plan and the principle of a multinational force to be discussed in details later.

The American position Yes to a disengagement plan based on the formation of a multinational force which would secure a cease fire, and remove Hezbollah's weapons.

The Israeli position Yes to a resolution that would call for disarming Hezbollah, forming a powerful multinational force and as a result of it a long term cease fire.

UN Peacekeepers? (CM)

Since 1948, the U.N. has stepped into the Arab-Israeli maelstrom five  times. But few of these efforts have paid off. Unless it takes a radically different shape, a new intervention could well make matters  worse, not just for the parties on the ground, but for the U.N. itself. ...

If recent history teaches anything, it is that half-hearted efforts--which give a false sense that something is being done but only end up costing peacekeepers' lives--can be worse than none at all.

More here.

Confirm Bolton (CM)

The National Review editorializes:

John Bolton "is an ambassador who has been capable both of using the U.N. to advance America’s priorities and of standing firm when the U.N. seeks to thwart those priorities. If such a record isn’t grounds for  confirmation, we don’t know what is... This is no time to silence the voice of American diplomacy —  particularly when that voice is as articulate, principled, and effective as John Bolton’s.

More here.

Bolton Rejecting Draft Security Council Resolution (CM)

We call upon Syria and Iran to end their role as state sponsors of terror and unequivocally condemn the actions of Hamas, including this kidnapping.  We yet again call upon Syria to arrest the Hamas ringleader, Khaled Meshal, who currently resides in Damascus.  We stress again our condemnation of Syrian and Iranian support of Hizballah, which has claimed responsibility for the other kidnappings along the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon.

We further call on the Palestinian Authority government to stop all acts of violence and terror and comply with the principles enunciated by the Quartet:  renounce terror, recognize Israel, and accept previous obligations and agreements, including the Roadmap.  The failure of the Palestinian Authority government to take these steps hurts the Palestinian people.

More here.

Media Roundup

Claudia Rosett continues to cover Tongsun Park's trial for NRO.  Park is "charged by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York with having acted as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein."

Andy McCarthy argues that the Hamdan decision "sounds the death knell for the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP)," in today's NRO.

Michael Kraus and J. Peter Pham question if Israel's disengagement from Gaza is a mistake in today's NRO.

Cliff's Notes & Comments are available in this week's e-newsletter.

Claudia Rosett on the First Oil-for-Food Trial

FDD's Claudia Rosett is blogging live for NRO on the first trial related to the Oil-for-Food scandal:

And so we come to the trial of Tongsun Park, accused by federal prosecutors of acting as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein, accused of playing a vital role in a secret “back-channel” network carrying messages and money between Baghdad and the U.N. executive suite. The defense lawyer has compared the prosecution’s case to “a Tom Clancy novel” and says his client is “absolutely not guilty.” The prosecution has accused Park of selling his high-level U.N. access for “cash by the bagful,” and receiving $2.5 million from Iraq for his labors, with Iraq promising millions beyond that.

Rosett's Notebook, as National Review Online calls her blog, is here.

Claudia's U.N. Update

Claudia Rosett delves deeper into the scandals at the U.N. with her two latest articles:

In NRO Claudia discusses this week's opening of the first federal trial linked to the U.N.'s infamous Oil-for-Food program.

In the Wall Street Journal Claudia reviews Paul Kennedy, a Yale historian with high-level U.N. connections', new book: "The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations."

Claudia Rosett Testifies on U.N. Transparency

Claudia Rosett appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. She provided testimony on the lack of transparency in the U.N.

More information on the hearing and Claudia's testimony is here.

How About Trying Reform?

Claudia Rosett discusses the "Unreality of U.N. Reform" in NRO:

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 the corruption-plagued, unreformed and unrepentant U.N.

Writing in the June 12 Financial Times, Annan reminds us that the U.S. has been threatening to block U.N. spending unless the organization shows serious progress toward reform. So, declares Annan, “The U.N. faces a moment of truth.”

And the Pulitzer Goes To... (BM)

Not the most deserving candidate, according to today's New York Post:

The Pulitzer Prizes, the Academy Awards of journalism, were announced last week; The Washington Post and The New York Times scored heavily, as always.  What a bore.

What a joke, actually.

Because any journalism award committee that didn't automatically hand top honors to Claudia Rosett, a journalist-in-residence for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the columnist who has explained to the world the appalling United Nations' Oil-for-Food scandal, is trafficking in hollow honors.

The rest of the editorial is here.

Surprise, Surprise (CM)

The U.N. Human Rights Commission has been re-named the U.N. Human Rights Council. And that's it -- that's all the "reform" you're going to see.

The U.S. will not run for a seat on the "new" council. The U.S. "will support the Council and we will continue to fund it."

Why?

The U.S. government statement is here.

Claudia's Coffee Talk (BM)

In her OpinionJournal column, Claudia Rosett catches up with the man at the heart of the UN Oil for Food scandal -- in Cyprus:

Medium or sweet?" asks Benon Sevan. He is inquiring how much sugar I would like in the Turkish coffee he's boiling up for us on his kitchen stove, and I am torn between thanking him for his hospitality and wondering if he might poison the refreshments. For the past three years, we have had a somewhat fraught connection, via a shared interest in the biggest corruption scandal ever to hit the United Nations--he as a star suspect, and I in writing about it. So when, together with a traveling companion, I paid a surprise visit on a recent Sunday afternoon to Mr. Sevan's current home--here in the capital of his native Cyprus--I really had little hope that he would do anything but slam the door on me.

The rest is here.

Gallup: Americans Give UN "Highest Negative Rating" Ever (BM)

Last month, we highlighted a Pew Research poll showing UN approval ratings in a freefall.  Gallup released new numbers yesterday, and they look even bleaker for the world body:

The Feb. 6-9 Gallup Poll finds that 30% of Americans say the United Nations is doing a good job, while 64% say it is doing a poor job. The percentage giving a favorable job approval rating is among the lowest that Gallup has ever measured. ...

Currently, 64% of Americans say the United Nations is doing a poor job -- the highest negative rating of the United Nations Gallup has ever measured.

To put these numbers in context, read Claudia Rosett's ongoing coverage of the UN's Oil-for-Food scandal here.

UN Freefall

Since September of 2001, the United Nations approval rating in the U.S. has plummeted from 77 percent to 48 percent, its lowest level in more than 15 years (this according to this PEW Research poll).  You can almost overlay this graph on top of Claudia Rosett's continuous flow of articles exposing UN corruption and hypocrisy.

Anyone wondering how low the UN can fall should read Claudia's latest on UN's Food-for-Nukes here.

And this Wall Street Journal editorial on the UN's bungled attempt to reform its laughable Human Rights Commission:

"Ambassador John Bolton has made it clear to his U.N. colleagues that the current proposal is not something the Bush Administration can endorse. That's a stand that will surely burnish his reputation in certain liberal circles as an "obstructionist." But fake reform is worse than no reform at all, and whatever else might be said of the current system, it at least has the virtue of being discredited.

"The world can certainly wait a few months more to get the human-rights agency that genuine human-rights victims deserve. The fact that the U.N. is incapable of providing one is yet another reminder of what ails the organization, especially under its current management."

Mr. Sevan, I Presume

Claudia Rosett's latest piece in the Opinion Journal asks the question: "What has become of the former head of the U.N. Oil for Food program, Benon Sevan?"

Claudia Rosett Receives the Center for Security Policy's "Mightier Pen" Award

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies congratulates Claudia Rosett for receiving the Center for Security Policy's “Mightier Pen” award for her tireless work exposing the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal and for her writing on issues of human rights and freedom.  Read the full press release.

Claudia on the UN and the Future of the Internet

FDD Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett writes an enlightening piece over at the new Pajamas Media site discussing the threat to the future of the Internet coming from the UN.  Given Claudia's excellent work highlighting UN corruption, she is uniquely qualified to encourage debate on this issue.

For more of Claudia's work, click here.

Dodge Ball at the United Nations

Claudia Rosett's latest article, The Mercedes Monologues, is up on NRO:

The mystery of the Kojo-and-Kofi-Annan Mercedes Benz gets deeper by the day. The real riddle by now is why the U.N. secretary-general's office keeps dodging all questions about the fate of the luxury car on which the secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, allegedly saved a bundle back in 1998 by buying it in his father's name and shipping it to Ghana under his father's U.N. privileges — allegedly without his father's knowledge or consent. Read the full article.

CLIFF MAY: More Oil-for-Food Fallout

India's Foreign Minister resigns. The International Herald Tribune has a story here.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Dollars for Dictators

From today's Opinion Journal:

Following last month's United Nations world summit, the poverty professionals are hard at work, having just marked World Poverty Eradication Day with powwows at U.N. offices around the globe and calls for global taxation to fulfill the U.N.'s "millennium development goals," which propose to halve poverty by the year 2015. Among the participants have been Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, the despotic duo, who took time out from presiding over the regress of their respective nations to jet to Rome for the 60th anniversary of the U.N.'s World Food and Agriculture Organization, whence they lambasted the U.S. and Britain and called for more aid and debt relief for the developing world. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Frenchmen Fried?

From National Review Online:

Even the French have finally discovered the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal. With the arrest in Paris this week of a former French ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Bernard Merimee, alleged to have received illicit and lucrative contracts to buy oil from Saddam Hussein's U.N.-sanctioned regime, the French newspapers are now aflutter over "petrole contre nourriture." Read more.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: U.N. Procurement Scandal: Secret Information Was Leaked to a Bidder

FDD's Claudia Rosett and FOX News's George Russell have a new piece:

On the morning of Nov. 6, 2003, an e-mail sped between two business executives at two private firms, bearing an important tip-off about an impending and highly confidential United Nations business deal.

Read the full article here.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: The Buck Still Hasn't Stopped

Claudia Rosett discusses the failings of the Volcker Report in her Weekly Standard article.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: U.N.-Plugged; Imagining the End of the "World" as We Know It

From today's Opinion Journal:

On Monday afternoon the electrical power blew out at U.N. headquarters, forcing the secretary-general and the foreign ministers of four of the world's most powerful nations, along with France, to evacuate the executive offices on the 38th floor. Nonessential U.N. staff were sent home--leaving a friend to quip, "Does that mean all of them?" Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: They've Been Partying Long Enough

From today's National Review Online:

On Wednesday, President Bush is due to address the United Nations, where more than 170 heads of state are meeting this week to celebrate the organization's 60th birthday and attend upon its umpteenth "reform." Among top officials at Turtle Bay, the worry is that Bush might introduce enough reality — or integrity — to spoil their fun. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has just warned, in an interview with the Independent, a British newspaper, that if the reform summit fails, he will blame the U.S. because "They are the host. You cannot be a host and destroy the party." Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Talking Their Way Out of the Scandal

From today's National Review Online:

On September 7, Paul Volcker's United Nations-authorized Independent Inquiry Committee delivered its main report on the corrupt Oil-for-Food program through which the U.N. from 1996-2003 supervised oil sales and relief purchases for Saddam Hussein's U.N.-sanctioned Iraq. The Volcker committee found that as the years passed, the “successes” of the program “fell under an increasingly dark shadow” and “reports spread of waste, inefficiency and corruption, even within the United Nations itself.” Of that, noted the Volcker committee, “Some was rumor and exaggeration, but much — too much — has turned out to be true.” ...

The day Volcker released his report, Annan's under-secretary general for communications, Shashi Tharoor prepared a set of talking points for U.N. officials having to contend with media questions. As it happens, his memo leaked. In the spirit of the newfound transparency the U.N. proposes to adopt, NRO is sharing it here. In the interest of even further transparency, I offer a few talking points of my own, interspersed in italics. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Expose, At Last?

From yesterday's National Review Online:

When the main report of the United Nations probe into its own former Oil-for-Food program hits the street Wednesday, the toss-up is whether the results of the investigation, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, will be the exposé the program — and the U.N. — have badly needed, or the cover-up some have feared. Coming the week before Secretary-General Kofi Annan presides over a gathering of more than 170 heads of state in New York, assembled to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the U.N. and possibly approve a still-fluid version of its badly needed reform, Volcker's report could carry even more weight than its expected length of some 1,000 pages might suggest. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: The U.N.'s Spreading Bribery Scandal: Russian Ties and Global Reach

From today's FoxNews.com:

How widespread is the corruption at the United Nations? The multibillion-dollar Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal was just the beginning.

Now the issue is becoming the scale of corruption in the U.N.'s normal operations — and which individuals and corporations are reaping the benefits of a network of bribery and conspiracy that investigators have just begun to uncover. So far, those identities are still a mystery — but perhaps not for much longer. Read more of Claudia Rosett and George Russell's article.

The Oil-for-Food Saga Continues

The U.N. agencies involved in the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal have agreed to begin paying Iraq back with oil proceeds they received in 2003.  Roger L. Simon has more here.

Meanwhile, the U.N. has just begun an inquiry into DaimlerChrysler's role in the scandal.  Expatica has more here.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: The U.N.-Touchables

From today's Opinion Journal:

Next month the United Nations will host not only the annual opening of the General Assembly but a world summit at which some 170 heads of the U.N.'s 191 member states are expected to converge on New York. From this conclave is supposed to emerge a neater, cleaner U.N.--chastened by scandal but revamped and ready for fresh infusions of taxpayer cash. Stacks of reform plans await. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Oil for Enron

From today's Wall Street Journal:

Since the Oil for Food program came to an end in 2003, it has been described--accurately enough--as oil for palaces, oil for terror and oil for fraud. Now it turns out the U.N. relief program in Iraq was also oil for Enron. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: U.N. Secretary-General's Brother Kobina Annan May Have Played a Role in Oil-for-Food Scandal

From today's New York Sun:

To the cast of characters caught up in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, investigators have reportedly added another name, that of the secretary-general's brother, Kobina Annan.  That means at least three members of the Annan clan are now under scrutiny, including Secretary-General Annan himself, his globetrotting son, Kojo Annan, and his brother, who is Ghana's ambassador to Morocco. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Scratching the Surface

From today's Opinion Journal:

"A single dollar lost to corruption is a dollar too much if you're handling international public monies": With this pious utterance did United Nations chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, greet the findings that the head of the U.N.'s Oil for Food program, Benon Sevan, was on the take from Saddam Hussein. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Benon Sevan’s Finest Hour

From Friday's National Review Online:

It’s rich that the former head of the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, Benon Sevan, is now protesting the secrecy surrounding U.N. records that he himself set up as confidential. [Read More]

CLAUDIA ROSETT: U.N. Mystery Man: Who Is Jean-Bernard Merimee and What's His Oil-for-Food Tie?

"As investigations proliferate into the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal, one of the more intriguing mysteries involves a former French diplomat with a direct link to the U.N.'s executive suite: Jean-Bernard Merimee..."
Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Ruin By Design

From today's WSJ Opinion Journal:

To whatever extent the recent United Nations report on Zimbabwe calls attention to the brutalities of the country's tyrant, President Robert Mugabe, the U.N. has performed a service. But as far as the report translates into nothing more than a fresh bout of aid funneled via Mugabe's regime, this U.N. initiative will only compound the suffering in Zimbabwe--where the government's latest atrocity has been to "clean up" the cities by evicting hundreds of thousands of poor people, destroying their dwellings and leaving them jobless, homeless and hungry. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: All the Secretary-General's Men: the Tangled Web of U.N. Cronyism

From today's New York Sun:

Reforming the United Nations is a tall order at the best of times. Today it stands no chance at all unless it starts by removing the network that during Kofi Annan's more than seven years as secretary-general has already helped him "reform" the world body - twice. Read More.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Was Former U.N. Official Wrongly Accused in Oil-for-Food Probe?

From today's Fox News.com:

The secretive Volcker inquiry into the more than $110 billion United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal plans to issue a third interim report later this month — to tie up “loose ends” from the previous two reports, as a committee spokesman recently put it. [Read More]

Bribery? At the U.N.?

According to Claudia's new New York Sun article:

The Manhattan District Attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into the former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, the DA's office has just confirmed for the first time.

The probe, apparently well advanced, involves allegations of commercial bribery related to Mr. Sevan's role as executive director from 1997-2003 of the oil-for-food relief program for Iraq, then under U.N. sanctions against the former regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sevan was picked for the job by Secretary-General Annan.

Another Scandal at the U.N.? How Surprising...

Claudia's newest NRO peice, Another Scandal Corner, discusses the newest OIl-for-Food revelations:

Here's the $19.2 billion question: Among the investigators now dredging the depths of the United Nations Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, is anyone focused on the biggest riptide of cash that flowed from Saddam Hussein via one of the U.N.'s most obscure channels?

That would be the $19.2 billion in Iraqi oil money disbursed by the U.N. over the past 12 years, not in the name of Iraqi relief, but as reparations for Saddam's 1990-1991 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Read More.

Fool Me Once...

Roger L. Simon highlights Claudia's research into the Oil-for-Food scandal.
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2005/06/fool_me_once_sh.php

Watch Out for Your Wallets!

Claudia Rosett explores Kofi Annan's fundraising techniques and ideas for U.N. reform in her new WSJ Opinion Journal piece.

Claudia Rosett Wins Breindel Award

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies congratulates FDD Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett, for receiving the seventh annual Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Journalism for her groundbreaking work exposing the UN Oil-for-Food scandal.

"For more than two years, Claudia Rosett has dug through the documents and sifted through the corruption to bring the world the truth about the UN's Oil for Food program," said FDD President Clifford May. "Without Claudia's dogged reporting, much of what we know now about the program – which was meant to feed Iraqis, but was instead used to build palaces and buy weapons – would not be known. I am both pleased and proud that FDD was able to give Claudia the support to do this work." [Read More]

To learn more about Claudia Rosett and the Oil-for-Food scandal, click here.

Exposing the U.N. Oil-for-Food Scandal

FDD's Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett has written more than 40 articles exposing the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal. As a result of her groundbreaking work, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed an internal commission to investigate. The U.S. Senate and House also began their own reviews and invited her to testify at hearings on the scandal. With FDD's support, Claudia continues to ensure that the truth is told about Oil-for-Food.

To read about Claudia's work, please click here.