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Hundreds of U.S. troops are effectively being held as “hostages” in Niger with medical supplies running low — stuck between the military junta-controlled government’s demands for them to leave and the Biden administration’s refusal to let them go home after the end of their deployments, according to a report prepared by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and obtained exclusively by Breitbart News.

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis warned on Sunday that the conflict in Niger amid a looming deadline for coup leaders to cede power could potentially lead to a "full-blown war in Africa." The Sunday deadline established by a coalition of West African nations for Niger to return to democratic rule is set to expire. The demand has been shunned by fellow military-led countries Burkina Faso and Mali, who have jointly warned that any intervention would amount to a declaration of war.

THE UN Secretary-General has used his end-of-year press conference to lash out at the media in general, and The Times in particular, for their coverage of the Oil-for-Food scandal and his role in it. Kofi Annan singled out James Bone, New York correspondent of The Times, after he questioned Mr Annan about a Mercedes jeep that his son, Kojo, imported into Ghana using his father’s diplomatic immunity to avoid taxes. Kojo Annan worked for a Swiss firm, Cotecna, that won a lucrative UN contract to monitor those imports. Mr Annan told reporters that they had focused unduly on himself and...

The tantrum with which Secretary General Annan greeted the now famous question about the missing Mercedes Benz tells us a lot about the tensions that are building at the United Nations. The question was lodged at a press conference by one of the best reporters in the U.N. press room, James Bone of the London Times. Mr. Annan, normally a mild-mannered, suave operator, lashed out at Mr. Bone, calling him "cheeky" and "an overgrown schoolboy," and accused him of being "an embarrassment" to journalism - upon which the august editorial page of the Wall Street Journal promptly invited Mr. Bone...

After advising his yet-unnamed successor to grow "thick skin," Secretary-General Annan yesterday appeared to have thinned his own, lashing out at reporters who asked about United Nations and Annan family scandals. Mr. Annan refused to allow a London Times correspondent, James Bone, to ask a question, accusing him of being "an embarrassment" to his profession. The eruption...reflected frustrations...poor supervision of the oil-for-food program...failed to move on such world events as the Darfur genocide... none of the U.N. reform ideas championed by Mr. Annan were implemented beyond window-dressing. Mr. Annan's...remark that the Iraq war was illegal. The comment did not sit...

CLICK HERE TO PRINT CLOSE WINDOW The Times October 28, 2005 UN team links more oil cash to Galloway wife's bank account From James Bone in New York Amina Naji Abu Zayyad, George Galloway's estranged wife (DWAYNE SENIOR) ::nobreak::GEORGE GALLOWAY faced new questions last night after a UN inquiry tracked additional payments of Iraqi oil money into his wife’s bank account. Days after a US Senate committee tracked a $150,000 (£84,000) payment to the MP’s now estranged Palestinian wife, the UN inquiry reported that Amina Naji Abu Zayyad had earlier received a series of transfers totalling $120,000. The revelation increases...

...So it was that the largest fraud ever recorded in history came about. Press reports often cite the overall size of Oil for Food at $60 billion, but Mr. Volcker's report makes clear that the real figure was in excess of $100 billion. From this, Saddam was able to derive $10.2 billion from illicit transactions. But the important point is he was able to steer 10 times that sum toward his preferred clients in the service of his political aims. ...Volcker's report is replete with examples of incompetent UN oversight and tales of political wrangling among the permanent members of...

You can choose your friends but not your family. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan escaped charges of corruption in a report on the Iraqi oil-for-food program released on Wednesday, but evidence was presented that his son Kojo brandished his father's name to avoid paying taxes on a luxury car and lied repeatedly while under investigation. Kofi Annan said the report was "deeply embarrassing." One of the most embarrassing points for the soft-spoken Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ghana must be the role of his own son. Kojo Annan, now 31, was a consultant for the Swiss firm Cotecna S.A. that won...

NEW YORK — How widespread is the corruption at the United Nations? The multibillion-dollar Iraq Oil-for-Food (search) 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.

Long before he was handpicked by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to lead an "independent" Inquiry Committee investigating the oil-for-food program, Paul Volcker was a big player as a lobbyist for "emergency" UN funding.

UNITED NATIONS - The executive who wrote an e-mail memo suggesting that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known about a U.N. contract awarded to the company that employed his son denies that he, personally, ever discussed the firm's bid with the U.N. chief, his lawyers said Wednesday. The memo written by Michael Wilson describes a brief encounter in which officials from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection S.A. discussed the company's bid for the contract with the secretary-general "and his entourage" during a summit of French-speaking nations in Paris in late 1998. The London law firm Schillings issued a brief...

Paul Volcker’s inquiry into the UN’s Oil-for-Food program "is urgently reviewing newly disclosed information concerning possible links between UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and representatives of Cotecna Inspection Services, a Swiss contractor based in Geneva that bid for contracts under the Oil-for-Food Program while the Secretary General's son, Kojo Annan, was a consultant for the company," said IIC’s spokesman, Michael Holtzman, in a statement issued Tuesday.

Paul Volcker says he and his U.N. Oil-for-Food gumshoes are "urgently investigating" new evidence that Secretary-General Kofi Annan knew a lot more than he's let on about the lucrative contract awarded to a company, Cotecna, that had retained his son Kojo. We can understand Volcker's sense of urgency — because if a newly uncovered memo is accurate, it completely undercuts the most important finding of his Independent Inquiry Committee report three months ago. The Volcker group said that no evidence linked Annan to the UN's multimillion-dollar deal with Cotecna. But the memo, first disclosed by The NY Times, looks to...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A newly disclosed memo appeared to cast doubt on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's insistence he was unaware of a bid by a Swiss firm that employed his son for a lucrative contract under the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program. U.N.-appointed investigators were "urgently reviewing" the memo, Michael Holtzman, a spokesman for the Independent Inquiry Committee led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, said on Tuesday. The memo described a late-November 1998 Paris meeting of Annan with officials of Cotecna Inspection Services, just weeks before the Geneva-based company won the contract. The contract has become a...

The Iraq oil-for-food inquiry is reviewing new information about the UN secretary-general's alleged links with a firm hired to monitor the programme. A memo by Swiss firm Cotecna published this week describes a meeting between Kofi Annan and its executives in 1998, weeks before the contract was awarded. Mr Annan has denied prior knowledge of Cotecna's bid for the contract, though his son worked there as a consultant. A previous inquiry report found that the UN head had not helped Cotecna.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Investigators of the U.N. oil-for-food program said Tuesday they are "urgently reviewing" new information that suggests U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known more about a contract that was awarded to the company that employed his son. The December 1998 memo from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna Inspections S.A., mentions brief discussions with Annan "and his entourage" during a summit in Paris in 1998. "We could count on their support," the memo said. If accurate, the memo could contradict a major finding of the Independent Inquiry Committee - that there wasn't enough evidence...

Memo Seems to Link Annan to Contract of Son's Company By JUDITH MILLER A memo written by someone who was then an executive of a major contractor in the United Nations oil-for-food program states that he briefly discussed the company's effort to win the contract in late 1998 with Secretary General Kofi Annan and his "entourage" and that the executive was told that "we could count on their support." The secretary general's son, Kojo Annan, was employed by Cotecna Inspection Services, a Swiss contractor based in Geneva, and the nature of that relationship is among the issues being investigated by...

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan did not initially tell investigators in the oil-for-food probe that he met twice with representatives of his son's employer as the Swiss company began soliciting United Nations business. Annan's omissions last November raised credibility concerns with the chief investigator, Robert Parton, that persisted even after Annan later provided his recollections about the meetings. Investigators had uncovered the contacts in calendars recovered from computers, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Parton sought to make an issue of Annan's veracity, concluding the U.N. chief wasn't initially forthcoming and his story evolved as new facts...

Defiant U.N. sleuth hands over oil-for-food papers By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - A former investigator for an independent inquiry into the U.N. oil-for-food program handed over potentially explosive documents on Thursday to a U.S. congressional committee, triggering outrage from inquiry head Paul Volcker. Robert Parton, a lawyer and former FBI agent who resigned last month as senior investigative counsel for the inquiry, gave the documents to U.S. lawmakers even though he signed a confidentiality agreement when he was hired and certified when he left that he possessed no documents related to his work. Congressional investigators speculate the...

US seeks probe of bribery allegations at UN agency By Frances Williams in Geneva Published: April 29 2005 20:31 | Last updated: April 29 2005 20:31 The US has called for a full investigation by the World Intellectual Property Organisation into allegations of bribery concerning the award of a SFr70m contract for a building renovation project. The allegations, which are being examined by a Geneva judge, centre on Michael Wilson, a Ghanaian businessman and former vice-president of Cotecna, the Swiss-based inspection company implicated in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal. The case is the latest controversy to blight the UN after...