UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced late on Friday an independent "high-level" probe into possible corruption and mismanagement in the UN-administered Iraqi oil-for-food program.
Annan has been under pressure to conduct an investigation from Iraqi leaders as well as the US officials searching for former president Saddam Hussein's hidden assets.
The UN has begun an in-house probe of its own staff. But Annan said it was now necessary to establish an "independent high-level inquiry to investigate the allegations relating to the administration and management of the program, including allegations of fraud and corruption."
In a letter to the UN Security Council, Annan said that for any investigation to be thorough and effective, support was necessary from the council, which supervised the program that began in December 1996 and ended last year.
The plan involved oil companies paying revenues to a UN escrow account while the UN paid suppliers of goods Iraq bought. Its purpose was to ease the impact of 1991 Gulf War sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.
Annan's letter said allegations in the media, whether or not they are well-founded "must be taken seriously and addressed forth-rightly, in order to bring to light the truth and prevent an erosion of trust and hope that the international community has invested in the organization."
A comprehensive probe, UN officials said, would need support from council members to investigate the middle men who bought the oil, companies that supplied civilian goods and the French bank BNP-Paribas, which handled a UN-Iraqi account.
The US General Accounting Office (GAO) is trying to locate and seize US$10 billion to US$40 billion in estimated hidden Iraqi assets.
Of this amount, the GAO in a report on Thursday charged that Saddam acquired US$5.7 billion from the proceeds of oil smuggled through Syria, Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
RSS