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UNITED NATIONS — The General Assembly is preparing to put an early end to an in-house panel that has exposed more than $600 million in tainted United Nations contracts and is currently investigating an additional $1 billion in suspect agreements. A budget committee of the General Assembly is scheduled to vote as early as Friday on a resolution that would force the panel to close down its operations in six months. The effort to scuttle the panel is not a budget matter so much as a political one, and it represents the continuing suspicion developing countries have about international intervention...

The United Nations' Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal is now six months old, so it's a good time to assess progress, if that's the right word. The evidence of misdeeds at the U.N. Development Program in North Korea continues to mount, but there's still no "urgent" and "external" inquiry, as ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January. Now the U.S. has uncovered evidence that in addition to transferring millions of dollars in cash that may have gone to help prop up Kim's grotesque regime, the UNDP also transferred dual-use technology. It did so without bothering to secure a U.S....

Can the Second Coming of Paul Volcker Save the Dollar? Thoughts on the eve of high level talks in Beijing by Antal E. Fekete, Professor, Intermountain Institute for Science and Applied Mathematics "Dismal Monetary Science" December 14, 2006 History replaying One of the most frequently asked questions from my readers is the title above. Conventional gold-bug wisdom holds that in 1979 the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, raised interest rates drastically, thereby putting an end to the galloping inflation then raging, and aborting the bull market in gold. Volcker’s high-interest policies are credited with the feat of...

The West’s need for Russia’s energy and cooperation regarding Iran, Iraq, China, and the “War on Terrorism” will likely lower the standard demanded for a full membership in the G8 group, to allow Moscow’s ascendance to the rich nations’ club, at the St. Petersburg meeting in July. “In the six years since he pledged to uphold democracy as a 'dictatorship of law,' President Vladimir Putin has increased the role of the police and security services in governing Russia and wielded the power of the courts for political ends,” says the Director of the London based Foreign Policy Centre, Stephen Twig....

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan lashed out at the media after a year of unrelenting attacks on the United Nations and criticism of his management of the $64 billion oil-for-food program in Iraq, calling one critic "an overgrown schoolboy." He criticized reporters Wednesday for what he said was unfair coverage of his role in the oil-for-food program and insisted reporters missed the big story. That, he said, was the more than 2,200 companies and invididuals from some 40 countries that paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government to get contracts. An 18-month investigation led by former U.S....

PARIS - An anti-bribery panel urged governments Friday to do more to investigate evidence of kickbacks and corruption in the U.N.-commissioned report on Iraq's oil-for-food program. Only 11 of some 40 countries whose citizens or companies were implicated by the inquiry have requested the evidence unearthed with a view to possible prosecutions, said Mark Pieth, panel chairman at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "The working group encourages its members to follow up by obtaining this information," said Pieth, who also was a member of the independent inquiry headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. The United...

NIGERGATE: Connections between members of the UN Inquiry Committee into the Oil-for-food program, the Rockefeller Group and the French. As promised some elements that the “radar missed”. Once again the Italian newspaper Il Giornale offers some fascinating insight into the less discussed aspects of the Nigergate affair. In addition I’ve posted a HIGHLY SIMPLIFIED chart mapping A PART of the links between members of the UN Oil-for-food Inquiry, the Rockefeller Group AND THE FRENCH. Is it perhaps because of these ties that France despite having been in possession of the false documents since the fall of 2000, despite only having...

New York, November 6: With his report on Iraqi oil deals creating a political storm in India, its author Paul Volcker, in a startling revelation, has said he agreed to change the language that referred to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo's business dealings. Volcker, who investigated allegations of corruption in the UN's USD 64 billion Iraqi oil-for food programme, said he had no idea how much the 18-month probe would expose the vulnerabilities of the world body and how close he would come to toppling the Secretary-General as its leader. "It had that potential from the start," Volcker...

New York, November 6: With his report on Iraqi oil deals creating a political storm in India, its author Paul Volcker, in a startling revelation, has said he agreed to change the language that referred to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo's business dealings. Volcker, who investigated allegations of corruption in the UN's USD 64 billion Iraqi oil-for food programme, said he had no idea how much the 18-month probe would expose the vulnerabilities of the world body and how close he would come to toppling the Secretary-General as its leader. "It had that potential from the start," Volcker...

London, November 6: Senior officials at the United Nations had disregarded the damning findings of the Volcker Commission's probe into the Iraqi Oil-For-Food programme, the US envoy to the global body has said. In the bubble on First Avenue, Volcker is just ignored. I talk about it, but it's a solitary conversation. Nobody else will be fired unless people are indicted by outside authorities," the Sunday Telegraph daily on Sunday quoted John Bolton, the American Ambassador to the UN, as saying at a private dinner in New York last week. "Corruption didn't arise out of thin air, it arose out...

Volcker changed language of report November 06, 2005 22:42 IST Last Updated: November 06, 2005 22:52 IST With his report on Iraqi oil deals creating a political storm in India, Paul Volcker, in a startling revelation, has said he agreed to change the language that referred to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo's business dealings. Complete Coverage: The Volcker Report Volcker, who investigated allegations of corruption in the UN's $64 billion Iraqi oil-for food programme, said he had no idea how much the 18-month probe would expose the vulnerabilities of the world body and how close he would...

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations faces a crisis of reputation in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal, but the 191 member states and Secretary-General Kofi Annan are determined to reform the world body, the top U.N. management official said Wednesday. Key elements of that reform include a new, strengthened whistleblower policy and new financial disclosure rules that, among other things, will require that staff report gifts of more than $250 rather than $10,000 as the rules currently demand, said Undersecretary-General Christopher Burnham. Burnham is an American and former official in the administration of President Bush. He was hired five...

MOSCOW (AP) - 1027dv-oil-for-food A scathing report on corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program for Saddam Hussein's Iraq drew widespread denials, terse dismissals and protestations of innocence Friday. But there were also pledges to investigate from some of the 2,200 companies cited and countries with citizens named. Russian officials angrily alleged that documents accusing companies and officials in that country were fake, and the head of the nation's electricity monopoly called for the report's writers to be punished. But in a rare partial admission, Sweden's Volvo AB acknowledged making payments through an agent to Iraqi authorities but said it did...

MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia could demand that the Paul Volcker commission, probing into the scandal around the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, disclose the sources of fake documents it had received, the Russian foreign minister said Saturday. Sergei Lavrov said the commission's report was being thoroughly studied. In a number of instances, the commission presented Russia with "rather dubious or clearly falsified documents" concerning Russia's participation in the Oil-for-Food program, he said. "If more fakes are discovered now or in the foreseeable future, we will urge the commission to explain how it came into possession of these so-called...

Many of these companies are little known, and some are probably fronts. But others are giants: The construction equipment division of Sweden's Volvo is alleged to have "knowingly" paid $535,000 in kickbacks to push $11.8 million in construction equipment, while various subsidiaries of Germany's Siemens paid a total of $1.6 million out of $124.3 million in sales of electrical equipment. (For the record, Volvo denies the allegation and Siemens "cannot confirm" it.) Other major companies named in the report for paying kickbacks include Daewoo, Australian food exporter AWB and Scottish engineering giant Weir. The report also provides a list, which...

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein manipulated the United Nations oil-for-food program so that his regime received $1.8 billion in illicit payments, a U.N.-backed independent report said Thursday. The investigation, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, said kickbacks came from some 66 member states and illicit surcharges came from 40 member states. The report also said Marc Rich & Co. financed 4 million barrels of oil under a 9.5-million-barrel contract awarded to the European Oil and Trading Co. (EOTC), a French-based shell company. "Surcharges were imposed on the oil," the report said, and "Marc Rich & Co. directed BNP...

UNITED NATIONS - More than 2,000 companies made about $1.8 billion in illicit payments to Saddam Hussein's government through extensive manipulation of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, according to key findings of a U.N.-backed investigation. The report — to be released in full Thursday by the committee probing claims of wrongdoing in the $64 billion program — indicates that about half the 4,500 companies doing business with Iraq paid illegal surcharges on oil purchases or kickbacks on contracts to supply humanitarian goods. The investigators reported that companies and individuals from 66 countries paid illegal kickbacks through a variety of...

In reviewing the career of French diplomat Jean-Bernard Mérimée, two key moments stand out. In June 1995, Mr. Mérimée, then France's ambassador to the U.N., announced he was largely satisfied with the progress Iraq had made on disarmament and wanted sanctions lifted sooner rather than later. And this week, a French investigative magistrate brought Mr. Mérimée in for questioning on an allegation that he took a bribe from Saddam in the form of 11 million barrels of oil. So now we know what French officialdom means by the word "multilateralism": One part involves speechifying about the need for international "consensus"...

ON SEPTEMBER 7, PAUL Volcker's inquiry into the Oil-for-Food program issued its "definitive report" on the biggest relief program--also the biggest scandal--in the history of the United Nations. The investigation alone cost $34 million, took over 16 months, and employed some 75 staff from 28 countries. Running to four volumes and totaling 847 pages, the report is hefty. But definitive it is not.Volcker's report is at best a beginning, and a skewed and incomplete one at that. To be fair, credit is due to some of the investigators on Volcker's staff, who have conducted many interviews and toiled down many...

The United Nations world summit... seems to have done no real harm: It has not further extended the authority and reach of the U.N., it has not foisted another "protocol" or "convention" for the Senate to consider... [or] fund. That may be a negative accomplishment, but it is certainly a real one, especially as Secretary General Kofi Annan had envisioned the summit as an opportunity to expand membership in the Security Council, expand his own powers and require rich countries to pony up additional billions in foreign aid, among other brainstorms. It took new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John...