UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has chosen the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to head an independent panel investigating corruption in the UN oil-for-food program, but an objection by Russia may keep him from accepting the job.
UN officials said Friday that Volcker, 76, had been selected for the panel along with Mark Pieth, 50, a Swiss law professor with expertise in investigating money laundering and economic crime, and Richard Goldstone, 65, a South African judge who was chief prosecutor for the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia.
But the nominations stalled Friday when Russia said it would not agree to a Security Council resolution that Volcker said he needed to give him the authority to conduct the wide-ranging inquiry that Annan was seeking.
"We understand the reputation of the secretariat is in question, but we do not think it is possible to adopt a resolution on the basis of mass media reports," said Sergei Trepelkov, spokesman for the Russian mission.
Those reports, published first by an Iraqi newspaper in January and more widely in the international press since then, listed companies and individuals as recipients of illegal allocations of oil. Forty-six of them were Russian, including Vladimir Titorenko, a former Russian ambassador to Baghdad, and Nikolai Ryzhkov, a member of Parliament. In a statement at the time, the Russian Foreign Ministry denied any wrongdoing by Russians.
According to a report by the General Accounting Office in Washington last month, the government of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein skimmed more than US$10 billion from the UN-monitored $67 billion program from 1997 to 2002.
Among those named in documents that emerged in Iraq was Benon Sevan, a career UN official who headed up the oil-for-food program and allegedly accepted oil allotments himself. He has denied the charges in a written statement.
The documents also showed that Kojo Annan, the secretary-general's son, was a consultant for Cotecna, a Swiss company contracted by the program. UN officials say an investigation in January 1999 by Joseph Connor, then the undersecretary general for management, showed that no one handling the contract was aware of the affiliation.
The Security Council began the oil-for-food program in December 1996 to let Iraq sell oil to ease the impact of the sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The proceeds were to go for the purchase of food and other goods, but they ended up funding an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and kickbacks with systematic smuggling, illegal surcharges and inflated port fees.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
RSS