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This story was already being cited as cause for concern about corporate DEI training even before last week when it took an even darker turn. Earlier this month the National Post reported that retired Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto was suing the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) over the treatment he received during diversity training sessions.It all began with a DEI course for TDSB administrators that started in April 2021. DEI trainer Kike Ojo-Thompson (the CEO of the KOJO Institute) led a series of sessions for TDSB higher-ups in which she made a number of familiar progressive arguments, according to Bilkszto’s...

And now, we join The Insider, already in progress. Next, The Insider's Lara Spencer goes behind the scenes in DC for tonight's Tidy Cats Washington Scoop.   Pat, members of congress from the left coast and the right were shocked yesterday when clean-cut Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold called for President Bush to be censored...

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...

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...

Evelyn Leopold http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/un_annan_dc;_ylt=Ak8uJ3VvSPKytd39jkRAoTys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-- UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Terrorism and conflicts across the Middle East will be major global issues in 2006, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at a year-end news conference on Wednesday and he also lashed out at the media for its coverage of the oil-for-food program. Annan said he faced getting tough management reform proposals through the U.N. General Assembly and trying to solve the ongoing conflict in Sudan's Darfur region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But he said he expected terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and the Middle East -- the slayings in Lebanon, the...

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....

Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, lied about what he knew of his son's business activities at the time of the Iraq oil-for-food programme, according to the senior investigator charged with examining his conduct. A report published by the US Congress also alleges that senior members of the UN's separate Volcker inquiry into the programme resisted printing any conclusion which might have forced Mr Annan's resignation. When the UN report on Mr Annan's conduct was published nine months ago, it stated that there was no evidence that Mr Annan had misbehaved. The inquiry examined the employment of...

LONDON (AP) - The son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has accepted a settlement from a British newspaper that claimed he was involved in selling Iraqi oil during Saddam Hussein's rule, his lawyer said Friday. Businessman Kojo Annan had brought High Court libel proceedings over a January story in The Sunday Times. His lawyer, Simon Smith, said the newspaper claimed Kojo Annan admitted to a friend that he had been involved in negotiations to sell 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil to a Moroccan company in 2001 as part of the corruption-riddled U.N. oil-for-food program. Sunday Times lawyer Alastair Brett,...

United Nations: The final report on the oil-for-food scandal has been released, to little fanfare. How sad so few people, apart from policy wonks, will read it. It's a stunning indictment of the U.N.'s current leadership. Maybe it's just an accident that the U.N.'s report on the biggest financial scandal in history was released amid the political maelstrom of the Harriet Miers fiasco and the possible indictment of two key presidential aides, thus ensuring it would get little coverage. But we doubt it. The first news accounts of the so-called Volcker Commission's final report emphasized that 2,200 out of 4,500...

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...

United Nations - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez used the United Nations on Thursday to fire a broadside at the United States, saying the world body should move out of New York over the war in Iraq. In a speech to the U.N. world summit, he also said the United States had failed its own people in its response to Hurricane Katrina, accused Washington of fueling terrorism and faulted it for its doctrine of pre-emptive military strikes.

...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...

As Paul Volcker put the finishing touches last week on his final report on the U.N.'s role in the oil-for-food scandal, investigators continue to uncover details about Kojo Annan's links with Cotecna, the company at the center of the influence-peddling inquiry. In late 1998, U.N. sources say, Kojo, son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, got a $3,000 loan from a friend for a down payment on a sporty green Mercedes ML 320 in Geneva, Switzerland. The friend was Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna, the firm that not only employed Kojo but also won millions of dollars in...

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.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations on Thursday offered to help the United States provide disaster relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina as the storm's devastation challenged the U.S. authorities' ability to cope. While the United States is the country best prepared to deal with such a disaster, "the sheer size of this emergency makes it possible that we can supplement the American response with supplies from other countries, or with experience we have gained in other relief operations," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. "I know we will not be alone. We will be happy to work with...

NEW YORK - Investigators probing claims of wrongdoing in the Iraq oil-for-food program accused its former chief, Benon Sevan, of corruption for taking illegal kickbacks and recommended his immunity be lifted for prosecution. The investigators said a former U.N. procurement officer sought a bribe and should have his immunity lifted as well. Alexander Yakovlev also was accused of collecting nearly $1 million in kickbacks outside the oil-for-food program. The third report by the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was a new blow to the scandal-tainted $64 billion program. For the first time, it gave...

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations' Monday announcement that it will look into whether a longtime official violated conflict-of-interest rules did more than draw attention to the man's possible wrongdoing — it also raised questions about how the world body investigates itself. The world body's decision to investigate procurement officer Alexander Yakovlev (search) was prompted by a FOX News investigation into the staffer. Yakovlev, who handles tens of millions of dollars' worth of contracts for a variety of U.N. operations, is entwined in an apparent father-son conflict of interest similar to the one that engulfed Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) and...

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.

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.