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A POWER outage at United Nations headquarters disrupted the General Assembly session today, forcing the evacuation of the main building and foreign ministers of the world's five most powerful countries to change their luncheon venue. The power failure, caused by an electrical malfunction in a switch generating unit in the 39-floor secretariat building, led UN security to order all staff except essential personnel and those supporting operations of the General Assembly to evacuate the main glass tower. UN chief Kofi Annan and the foreign ministers of the UN Security Council's five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the...

NEW YORK -- President Bush yesterday implored the United Nations to rid itself of corruption and scolded the global body for squandering the world's respect and making a mockery of human rights. "When this great institution's member states choose notorious abusers of human rights to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, they discredit a noble effort and undermine the credibility of the whole organization," Mr. Bush told the U.N. General Assembly. In past years, Libya and Sudan have served on the commission. "If member countries want the United Nations to be respected and effective, they should begin by making...

UNITED Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has vowed to pursue urgent reform of the world body after the long-awaited report into corruption and abuses in Iraq's oil-for-food program. A UN-appointed panel heavily criticised Mr Annan's management of the aid operation, saying he and the Security Council failed to curb abuses of the program by UN staff, contractors and Saddam Hussein. Mr Annan yesterday accepted responsibility for the corruption as investigators presented a massive report on the problems after 16 months of work. But he quickly sought to use the panel's call for sweeping change as a catalyst for his own proposals...

THE United Nations has refused to start printing Iraq's draft constitution, yet again delaying efforts to get millions of copies to voters before a referendum on October 15. One negotiator from the Sunni Arab minority which has been lobbying for changes to the text adopted by parliament on August 28, said non-Arab Kurdish leaders agreed to an amendment to the draft to strengthen wording on Iraq's nature as an Arab state. Others involved were not available for comment. "We haven't been given authority to print it," said Nicholas Haysom, a UN official in Baghdad, adding that he could not say...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Ambassador John Bolton used his new platform at the United Nations Thursday to issue a stern warning to two nations that President Bush has accused of destabilizing the Mideast and supporting terrorism. And if Bolton's recess appointment Monday by Bush was supposed to make him a leper at the United Nations, the way Bolton opponents predicted, no sign of it was evident during his debut at the U.N. Security Council Thursday. Several ambassadors, including those from Algeria, Argentina, France, Russia and China expressed welcoming wishes and expressions of enthusiasm to working with the former State Department undersecretary....

BENON Sevan, the former head of the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq, expects to be accused of getting money in oil deals, allegations his lawyer calls "entirely false" and without evidence. In a lengthy statement, the lawyer, Eric Lewis, anticipated a report next Tuesday from a UN-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee, led by Paul Volcker, the former US Federal Reserve Chairman. The panel, Mr Lewis said, intends to say that Mr Sevan received money from a contractor, doing business with the $US67 billion ($86.96 billion) humanitarian program. But the lawyer said, "The charge is categorically untrue and no evidence has been...

THE steady drip of revelations about the oil-for-food scandal threatens to force Kofi Annan from his job as UN Secretary-General before the end of his term. Speculation is mounting at UN headquarters in New York that Mr Annan will announce his resignation at a summit of world leaders in the city in September, in the larger interests of the organisation. It follows the reopening this week of the inquiry into the scandal led by Paul Volcker, part of which had focused on the award of a border inspection contract in Iraq to a company employing Mr Annan's son, Kojo Annan....