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Senate Investigators Say U.N. Inspector Was Bribed by Iraq By JUDITH MILLER nvestigators for the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee said yesterday that they had determined that one United Nations-contracted inspector had been bribed to help Iraq export more oil than was authorized under the oil-for-food program. The investigators said they would present at a hearing tomorrow what they called "overwhelming evidence" that an inspector employed by Saybolt International, the Dutch company hired to monitor oil exports under the program, had accepted more than $100,000 to help the former Iraqi government export more than $9 million worth of oil outside of...

Brussels -- A star racing pigeon named Armando has fetched a record 1.25 million euros (about $1.4 million) in an online auction, Belgian media reported Sunday. The prized bird -- Belgian's best long-distance racer of all time according to those in the know -- was snapped up by a Chinese buyer for the princely sum that caused a flutter of excitement among fanciers. Armando had been expected to break the previous record of 376,000 euros ($425,000) paid for a pigeon called Nadine -- but not by such a wide margin. "Earlier this week it became clear that Armando would be...

On the eve of the first-ever Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas, I would be lying if I said that we here at the Media Blog hadn't caught a touch of the "Kos fever" that's sweeping the nation in anticipation of this historic event. As a result, we've put together a post about some recent Kos-related items that have crossed our radar. First, some friends of mine at NMI, the new media watchdog project at the Swedish free-market think tank Timbro, informed me that a Swedish magazine recently published an interview with Kos. Here's a sample of what he had to say: “I wouldn't want to...