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ESIGODINI, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Friday accused a top U.N. envoy of being a "hypocrite and a liar" and said he would refuse to accept future emissaries from the world body if they were British agents. Mugabe told a conference of his ruling ZANU-PF party that U.N. humanitarian affairs and relief coordinator Jan Egeland had gone out of his way to insult and misrepresent Zimbabwe after he ended a four-day tour of the country this week. "You can see how they raise this, so that the rest of the international community can say 'human rights in...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the co-chairman of a congressional task force to examine United Nations reform, said Friday he was impressed with U.N. officials' apparent desire to fix the world body. Gingrich, a Republican, said U.N. officials recognized that the opportunity was right after years of promises that had brought no significant change. "There was no argument today about the fact that there are systems that just don't work, there are patterns that just aren't acceptable," Gingrich told reporters during a visit to the United Nations. He was accompanied by fellow co-chair George Mitchell, a...

While some U.S. senators are clamouring for his head on the oil-for-food scandal, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is getting a prominent plug from Paul Heinbecker, Canada’s former Ambassador to the United Nations (2000-2003). In the lead op-ed piece in yesterday’s Toronto Star, Heinbecker makes his plea to Resist rush to judgment. Accusing Annan’s Washington detractors of employing “frontier justice”, Heinbecker calls for a disentanglement of the facts and politics of the oil-for-food program. “According to the uber-hawks in Washington, including their birds of a feather in Congress, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan should not only resign, he should be...