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Out on bail awaiting trial, dual US-Syrian citizen, Antoin ‘Tony' Rezko, was rousted out of bed by police pounding on the doors of his Chicago mansion the morning of Monday, January 28. According to the Associated Press: "U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve jailed Rezko...saying he had disobeyed her order to keep her posted on his financial status. Among other things, he failed to tell her about a $3.5 million loan from London-based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi -- a loan that was later forgiven in exchange for shares in a prime slice of Chicago real estate. Rezko gave $700,000...

The United States has said it had approved a World Trade Organisation deal to make generic medicines more widely available to poor countries. US Trade Representative Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), in Hong Kong for a WTO conference, announced that Washington had formally accepted the accord, which was settled last week at the WTO's Geneva base. WTO members confirmed their support for a provisional 2003 amendment to intellectual property rules that enabled poor countries to import generic drugs to treat infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. "Our acceptance of this amendment is an important step in the...

Next Crisis at U.N. May Involve Ties Of Volcker, Strong BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun April 22, 2005 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/12647 UNITED NATIONS - The next chapter in the United Nations crisis may erupt over U.N. investigator Paul Volcker's membership on the board of one of Canada's biggest companies, Power Corporation, since a past president of the firm, Canadian tycoon Maurice Strong, is now tied to the oil-for-food scandal.Also, following yesterday's reports of resignations of top investigators on Mr. Volcker's team, Washington officials revisited Secretary-General Annan's assertion that the team's report last month exonerated him. For the...

The Power behind the thrones   Monday, 14 February 2005 Mark Steyn I always love the bit on the big international news story where they try to find the Canadian angle. A couple of months back, every time I switched on The National, there seemed to be no news at all and Peter Mansbridge was in the middle of some 133-part series of reports on “Canadians making a difference in the world,” which at least three nights a week seemed to be an “encore presentation” of the same worthy soft-focus featurette about some guy helping with an irrigation project in...

A former chief U.N. weapons inspector revealed yesterday that he was offered millions of dollars in bribes from Tariq Aziz, Iraq's ex-deputy prime minister — to give a favorable report on Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. In the latest U.N. oil-for-food scandal bombshell, ex-weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus said he told the U.N. investigative panel headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker about the bribe offer, which he said he rejected. "I told the Volcker people that Tariq said a couple of million dollars was there if we report right," Ekeus told Reuters. "My answer was, 'That is not the...

Last Wednesday, Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota and co-chairman of the U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq, called on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign in a commentary published in The Wall Street Journal. While Britain, Germany, France, Russia and China quickly rallied to Mr. Annan's defence, there can be no doubt that the senator is correct: Mr. Annan has to go. As Mr. Coleman argues, "the most extensive fraud in the history of the United Nations occurred on [Mr. Annan's] watch." Over the decade-long run of the oil-for-food program, the UN and several...

UN the Merciful! From Robert at Alphabet City: AN APPEAL, A REPLY From Alaa the Messopotamian: I appeal to people of the World; Please, Please, Please hear the true voice of the Iraqi people. We are facing a terrible conspiracy. The people of the South are being persecuted and massacred, not by the Americans, not by the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police. The gangs of the “Mehdi” army financed and recruited by the Iranian security forces and others, this has become amply clear, are massacring the people, right now as I am writing these lines. As one caller to...

The Left's dogmatic insistence that the answer to all of America's foreign policy questions lie within the hallowed halls of the United Nations continues to bewilder the clear-thinking. The persistent belief that the UN is somehow the world's "moral compass" is due more to hopes and dreams than fact and reason. The UN's record of incompetence and corruption is truly mind-boggling, and it seems to grow every day. The most well-known moral failure of the UN in recent memory took place in Rwanda, in 1994. UN peacekeeping troops did nothing to prevent Rwandans from being slaughtered in a spasm of...

On April 17th. Democratic presidential contender John Kerry called on President George W. Bush to get rid of the "Made in America" tag on the US-led occupation of Iraq in a new campaign attack. Kerry said an international mission approved by the United Nations must be set up to organize elections, restore government services and help rebuild the Iraqi economy. Candidate Kerry needs a better, more up to date staff to keep him informed. The UN is being investigated for Billions (not millions) of dollars in Iraqi kickbacks in the Oil for Food program. France, Russia and other UN members...

I wrote last week about UNScam, as the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal is being called by some.  Since then, a lot more information has come out, and things look even worse than they did a week ago. U.N. sanctions forbade Iraq from selling oil because of Saddam's refusal to disarm as he promised to after the Gulf War in 1991.  The oil-for-food program was supposed to let Iraq sell some oil, with the money placed under close U.N. supervision so as to ensure that it went for food and medicine for ordinary Iraqis, not weapons and palaces for Saddam.  Instead, the...