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It is time for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to step up to the plate and investigate Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, who is currently touring the Middle East at the expense of American Taxpayers as an envoy of her Department of State. Claudia Rossett, one of America's premier journalists, today reveals several disturbing facts that more than warrant an official investigation: ...what's going on with the web site of his Cordoba Initiative? Last week, after someone in his Malaysia office referred all questions back to his office in New York, the phone number and address of his office in Malaysia...

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The Development Committee of the World Bank is meeting over lunch to discuss the fate of wolfowitz. We are told by inside sources that the topic of Woflowitz is the number one topic on the lunch agenda. Europeans are said to be taking an ever tougher line. The Development Committee is the ministerial body which meets twice yearly to discuss World Bank strategy. The Wolfowitz issue was not of course supposed to be on their plate this Spring. European ministers seem to be hardening their position against him and now realizing that the only to salvage the Bank's integrity and...

Wolfowitz's friend says she's the victim By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Shaha Riza WASHINGTON - The woman at the heart of the controversy that has embroiled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz says she is a victim and was forced into a job transfer because of their relationship. Shaha Riza's comments are included in new documents released by the World Bank on Friday that also show Wolfowitz had a direct hand in arranging her promotion and generous pay package. Wolfowitz is fighting to retain his job. Riza said that at no time did she report directly to Wolfowitz and that...

After advising his yet-unnamed successor to grow "thick skin," Secretary-General Annan yesterday appeared to have thinned his own, lashing out at reporters who asked about United Nations and Annan family scandals. Mr. Annan refused to allow a London Times correspondent, James Bone, to ask a question, accusing him of being "an embarrassment" to his profession. The eruption...reflected frustrations...poor supervision of the oil-for-food program...failed to move on such world events as the Darfur genocide... none of the U.N. reform ideas championed by Mr. Annan were implemented beyond window-dressing. Mr. Annan's...remark that the Iraq war was illegal. The comment did not sit...

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. employees union has criticized Secretary-General Kofi Annan for retaining his former chief-of-staff as an adviser despite accusations the aide authorized shredding three years of files on the corrupt oil-for-food program for Iraq. The Independent Inquiry Committee led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker criticized Iqbal Riza for giving approval to shred the documents on April 22, 2004 — a day after the U.N. Security Council authorized an investigation into the oil-for-food program. A resolution adopted by the Staff Council, the union's executive, and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, said keeping Riza as a...

For news junkies, this will be a hectic week. By its end, Catholics may have a new pope, we may have a new UN ambassador, and both Kofi and his bestest buddy Jacques may suffer nervous breakdowns. Things are looking up because, while Volcker fiddles, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York are burning bad guys. Now all we need to find out are the names of Cooperating Witnesses One and Two, and the high-ranking UN officials whom they bribed for Saddam. CW1 and CW2 may be the first people who have earned the...