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On Capitol Hill, the latest Republican fad is to get in front of a microphone or a TV camera and demand the resignation of Kofi Annan. According to certain members of Congress, the U.N. Secretary General must leave office immediately because of reported corruption in the oil-for-food program. Leading this mob is Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota who is too impatient to await the results of pending investigations—including the probe that he himself has undertaken as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the official U.N. inquest directed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. In an...

Marc Rich Holding Refutes UN Oil Scandal Allegations Wednesday December 15, 1:54 PM EST ZUG, Switzerland -(Dow Jones)- Former American fugitive Marc Rich refuted media allegations Wednesday that his holding company was involved in illegal transactions as part of the U.N.'s Oil for Food program. In a brief press statement, Marc Rich Holding said the allegations that Rich made illegal payments to Iraq in order to secure lucrative oil contracts are groundless. A spokesman declined to comment on whether a U.S. criminal investigation has been opened into the matter. The allegations were first reported by ABC News in early December....

Secretary Colin L. PowellC Street EntranceWashington, DCDecember 16, 2004(9:50 a.m. EST) SECRETARY POWELL: Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The Secretary General and I just had a very productive meeting, where we discussed some of the many challenges that we are dealing with in the world today. We had a good conversation on the situation in Darfur and the need for us to do more. I told the Secretary General I had spoken to Vice President Taha yesterday and will be in touch with additional Sudanese officials in the days ahead. We also talked about the dialogue taking place in...

he already ugly United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal has now taken yet another distinctly despicable turn. As The Post's Niles Lathem reports, local and federal prosecutors believe that Marc Rich — the one-time fugitive financier who received one of Bill Clinton's last-minute-in-office pardons — was a central figure in negotiating illicit oil deals on behalf of Saddam Hussein. Moreover, it appears that Rich began spreading Saddam's oil largesse to on-the-take international politicians after Clinton, at the end of his term, gave Rich full legal exoneration from the nation's biggest tax-fraud case — over the heated objections of his own Justice Department....

Federal authorities are investigating accusations that billionaire financier Marc Rich, who received a questionable pardon on President Clinton's last day in office, brokered millions of dollars in deals between Saddam Hussein and other key traders as part of the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. [snip]Mr. Rich fled to Switzerland after his 1983 indictment by Justice Department prosecutors on 65 counts of racketeering, fraud, tax evasion and illegal oil trading in a case involving the evasion of $48 million in taxes and the violation of U.S. sanctions by trading with Iran while American hostages were held in that country.[snip]At the time of...

POST WORLD EXCLUSIVE WASHINGTON — Billionaire Marc Rich has emerged as a central figure in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal and is under investigation for brokering deals in which scores of international politicians and businessmen cashed in on sweetheart oil deals with Saddam Hussein, The Post has learned. Rich, the fugitive Swiss-based commodities trader who received a controversial pardon from President Bill Clinton in January 2001, is a primary target of criminal probes under way in the U.S. attorney's office in New York and by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, sources said. "We think he was a major player in this...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

From me to Bishop Charlene Kammerer, presiding bishop over the Virginia Conference, United Methodist Church, 19 November 2004: Bishop Kammerer, Considering the increasing revelations of U.N. complicity in the Oil for Food scandal, and that money intended for Iraqi civil and humanitarian purposes has gone instead to reward the families of Palestinian terrorists, and the closely aligned activities and sympathies of U.N. and GBCS officers, what, if anything, do you propose be done to assure Virginia and General Methodists that all Conference and General BCS activities have been free from the OFF scandal? Mike Barker Trinity UMC, King George VA...

A St. Paul woman who bit off a piece of her boyfriend's tongue after an argument in June was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail and ordered to undergo mental-health and chemical-dependency treatment.

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version November 18, 2004, 8:25 a.m. The Turtle Bay MafiaTaking the U.N. to court. You have to hand it to the Turtle Bay crime family: They have turned the art of stonewalling congressional investigators into a science. And while the evidence of the largest financial scam in history drips out in bits and pieces, the U.N.'s only answer is "trust us." It's time to take a harder line on the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food-for-Bribes-for-Terrorism program. Can you imagine what would have happened to Kenny Boy and the rest...

Statement of The Honorable Henry Hyde before the Full Committee Hearing on "Oil-for-Food: Tracking the Funds" Wednesday, November 17, 2004 Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects Unseen. William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet, Act 3 I am beginning to believe that the prevailing sentiment regarding the United Nations Oil-for-Food program may have been "hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil." No one seemed to be in charge of watching Saddam Hussein while he and his government were conducting perhaps the largest financial swindle in history. The corruption Saddam and his regime sowed created scores of accomplices around the...

C-Span now showing the Oil For Food Scandal with Congress members.

Atlantis Hunt Reveals Structures in Sea Off Cyprus Sat Nov 13, 2004 06:33 AM ET NICOSIA (Reuters) - An American researcher on the trail of the lost city of Atlantis has discovered evidence of man-made structures submerged in the sea between Cyprus and Syria, a member of his team said Saturday. Robert Sarmast, who is convinced the fabled city lurks in the watery depths off Cyprus, will give details of his findings Sunday."Something has been found to indicate very strongly that there are man-made structures somewhere between Cyprus and Syria," a spokesperson for the mission told Reuters. The mystery of...

Washington, DC - The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) has scheduled a hearing entitled, “How Saddam Hussein Abused the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program.” The hearing is set for Monday, November 15, 2004, at 12:00 p.m. in Room 342 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. This hearing will be the first of several hearings the Subcommittee intends to hold on this matter. Today, Chairman Coleman and ranking member Senator Carl Levin also sent a letter to Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, reiterating a request for access to UN internal audit reports as well as key personnel knowledgeable...

John Kerry believes it is better to sacrifice American lives for the United Nations than for the United States. If you don't believe me on this, perhaps you will believe a paper that endorses his candidacy – the Washington Post. Here's what a front-page Washington Post news story written by Helen Dewar and Thomas E. Ricks said on this point yesterday: Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. To justify that nearly...

Kerry left off some absentee ballots By Barry M. Horstman Post staff reporter Some absentee ballots distributed to Hamilton County voters do not include the name of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, local election officials confirmed today. Because of a printing error -- limited, election officials believe, to only a few ballots in the Forest Park area -- absentee ballots recently mailed out exclude the Democratic presidential ticket of Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards. "It's a screw-up," said Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. "This just feeds the paranoia that's out there. The...

Charge Of Bribing Russia, France With Oil Silly: Annan New York, Oct. 17 (NNN): United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has dismissed allegations that France and Russia might have been willing to ease sanctions on Iraq in return for oil. Kofi Annan told the Jonathan Dimbleby programme on British TV channel ITV1 the claims were "inconceivable". "These are very serious and important governments. You are not dealing with banana republics," he added. The allegations were made earlier this month in a report by the US-led Iraqi Survey Group. Chief US weapons inspector Charles Duelfer said he had found evidence in...

Putin: Ally or Terrorist? by William F. Jasper Counting Vladimir Putin as an ally against terrorism ignores his career in the murderous KGB/FSB and his ongoing support for terrorist regimes and organizations. ‘‘Lena Goncharuk, aged 38, said that she was the only one to survive out of a group of six who were ordered out of the cellar where they had been hiding and shot at point blank range. Resting in her hospital bed, her voice barely rising above a whisper, she said she had survived only by pretending to be dead." So reported Paul Wood from the Chechen border...

Where is the outcry about Kerry and the DNC? What about the trail by which these forged memos got to CBS? Here’s what Rush Limbaugh had to say yesterday about the route by which they arrived at CBS: "This story from the Prowler at the American Spectator: "More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Colonel Jerry Killian. The opposition researcher claimed the source was a 'retired military officer.' According to a DNC staffer, the documents were...

Democrats Sue To Keep Nader Off Florida Ballot Dems Say Candidate Never Nominated By His Party POSTED: 6:37 pm EDT September 2, 2004 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Florida Democratic party is suing the state and Ralph Nader to keep him off the November ballot, saying that the Reform Party's nomination process was a sham. The suit says the Reform Party is not a viable political party and that Nader was never nominated at a convention, which is required by state law to get on the ballot. Democrats and Republicans agree that Ralph Nader’s presence on the 2000 ballot cost Al...