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UNITED NATIONS -- A day after a senior U.N. official was indicted on bribery charges, the United Nations management chief said Thursday an investigation into corruption was "at full throttle" and he urged anyone with relevant information to cooperate. "The dominoes are beginning to fall," undersecretary-general for management Christopher Burnham told the Associated Press. "Anyone with information about corruption anywhere in the U.N. needs to come forward now before the dominoes reach them," he added. Burnham, who has been instrumental in pressing investigations into corruption especially in U.N. procurement activities, said the corruption probe goes beyond the procurement department. "This...

UNITED NATIONS -- Venezuela accused Guatemala on Friday of bowing to U.S. pressure and backing out of talks on a compromise candidate to break a deadlock in their battle for a seat on the U.N. Security Council. Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said if talks resume his government will again propose Bolivia as a compromise nation "because it is an emerging country with a new leadership representing very well South America." Latin American diplomats had hoped that high-level talks on Thursday between Maduro and Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal could break the impasse after 41 ballots failed to produce a...

GENEVA -- Washington's new anti-terrorism law could end up violating international treaties protecting detainees, with some provisions denying suspects the right to a fair trial, a U.N. rights expert said Friday. Martin Scheinin, the U.N. expert on protecting human rights in the fight against terrorism, said the Military Commissions Act signed into law earlier this month by President Bush contains provisions "incompatible" with U.S. obligations to adhere to treaties on human rights and humanitarian law. "One of the most serious aspects of this legislation is the power of the president to declare anyone, including U.S. citizens, without charge as an...

President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela will not abandon its bid for a U.N. Security Council seat, accusing the United States of using coercive measures to gain support for Guatemala in deadlocked voting at U.N. headquarters. "Venezuela does not surrender," Chavez said in a speech Tuesday night. "I say it here to the whole world, Venezuela will continue waging this battle." Chavez called it a struggle against the U.S. "empire" and accused Washington of leading a fierce campaign of "blackmail, pressure, threats of all sorts," during 22 rounds of voting over two days in the U.N. General Assembly. The U.N. General...

UNITED NATIONS -- The General Assembly adopted a resolution by acclamation Friday appointing South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. secretary-general. Ban, 62, will become the eighth U.N. secretary-general on Jan. 1, when Annan's second five-year term expires. He was one of seven candidates vying to be the U.N. chief and topped all four informal polls in the U.N. Security Council. Hundreds of diplomats and U.N. staff in the chamber broke into loud applause when assembly president Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa asked the 192-nation world body to adopt the resolution by acclamation. She then...

The members of "P5 plus Germany," as the group is referred to, agreed in their talks in London Friday on the need to move forward with sanctions against Iran following Teheran's rejection of demands to halt its nuclear program. At the same time, the group made it clear that the door was open for negotiations if Iran accepts the offer from Europe and the US of economic incentives in return for freezing enrichment... The sanctions are meant to be imposed gradually, avoiding broad restrictions on Iran's regime or economy. According to diplomatic sources, this approach will help the US convince...

MADRID, Spain -- The top U.N. official on torture said Friday that a bill before the U.S. Congress could deprive terrorism suspects of a fair trial and was especially troubling after the mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The legislation, expected to clear a final congressional hurdle Friday and go to the White House for the president's signature, was condemned by many politicians, human rights groups and newspapers around the world as a violation of international law and an invitation to torture. At least two U.S. allies — Poland and Britain — declined to comment directly on the...

UNITED NATIONS -- South Korea's foreign minister was the only candidate for U.N. secretary-general to receive the required majority of votes from the U.N. Security Council in an informal ballot conducted Thursday, diplomats said. Ban Ki-Moon received 13 votes in favor, one against and one of no opinion, China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guagnya said. Despite that dominating lead, the secrecy of the ballot meant it was not known whether he got the necessary approval of all five veto-wielding members of the council. The informal ballot is only meant to give the candidates a rough idea of where they stand, and...

A meeting between IDF officers, representatives of the Lebanese army and the UNIFIL commander ended without results on Tuesday, threatening to further postpone the IDF's complete withdrawal from Lebanon until next week. The IDF had initially planned to pull out its remaining several hundred troops from Lebanon by the end of the week. A source in the Northern Command said that the meeting, which took place Tuesday meeting at UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura - north of Rosh Hanikra - was a "failure" and that the IDF threatened to keep its soldiers inside Lebanon for as long as it took for...

DEIR KIFA, Lebanon -- U.N. troops sent to keep the peace in southern Lebanon are taking strong defensive measures against possible suicide attacks — worried because al-Qaida has warned they are considered enemies of Islam. The peacekeepers are putting up checkpoints and picking remote spots for their bases. French soldiers, for instance, plan to set up one of their main bases in Baraachit, on a plateau that is more than 2,600 feet high. France is taking no chances in light of an earlier aborted peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. It pulled out of that operation after a suicide truck bombing in...

GENEVA -- U.N. human rights investigators criticized the United States on Thursday for failing to take steps to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison for terror suspects, which they say facilitates torture and violates international law. In the first U.N.-sanctioned inquiry into U.S. practices at Guantanamo, the rights experts also criticized the Bush administration for a proposed law they said might permit torture in certain circumstances. The experts presented their report on Guantanamo and its 450 detainees to the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council, a summary of which was released earlier this year. "We note with the greatest concern that...

The G-15 meeting at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana last week was yet another in a long line of sickening spectacles involving the United Nations. The summit was presided over by disgraced UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and held for the first time in 27 years in the communist dictatorship of Cuba. It was no coincidence that while Annan declined an invitation to meet with Cuban dissidents, he happily rubbed shoulders with Fidel Castro’s despotic successor Raul Castro. Indeed, the summit was attended by a veritable whose-who list of world dictators, terrorist states and tyrants, all of them railing against the United States.   ...

The IAF is violating the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, and the UN force in Lebanon intends to launch an official complaint against Israel following the violations, UN sources reported on Thursday. Spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force currently stationed in Lebanon, Alexander Ivanko, said that "the alleged violations will be reported to the UN headquarters in New York and also to the IDF." The spokesman said that IAF fighter jets had carried out some 35 violations of Lebanese air space, in breach of the ceasefire agreement reached with the UN Security Council. Despite the usual IAF incursion of one flight a day,...

Offers by anti-Israel countries to patrol Lebanon, Hizbullah's welcoming of Lebanese troops and the abandonment of vows to disarm the terrorist group leave Hizbullah stronger and Israel weaker. Any hopes that the United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolution ending the hostilities between Hizbullah terrorists and Israel would make Israel safer continue to dissipate. "Villagers throwing rice and Hizbullah supporters holding banners welcomed the [Lebanese] army to south Lebanon," according to the Associated Press. For the first time in three decades, Lebanese Army troops neared the Israeli border this morning [Friday], as they continue to deploy in southern Lebanon. However,...

Sunday's deadly Katyusha attacks in Kfar Giladi and Haifa could change the way Israel relates to the US-French draft resolution at the UN Security Council calling for a cessation of hostilities, senior diplomatic officials said Sunday evening. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was expected to hold meetings deep into the night with the top security-brass to discuss the ramifications of Sunday's attacks, and whether to widen the scope of the present operations. "This may change everything," one senior official said. The attacks may re-open discussions in the government and in the IDF on whether to launch a final push to the...

Urging the international community to "end the fighting and the killing," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan backed a Lebanon stabilization force Tuesday stressing it must be bigger and better armed than the UN's current force of about 2,000. Speaking to reporters after discussing the Middle East at the European Commission, Annan said the UN Security Council would have to work out the proposed force's size and rules of engagement. He said such a force should be "larger than the 2,000-man force we have there (and) have a different concept of operation and, hopefully, a different mandate from the Security Council that...

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Sunday rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning the communist nation for recent missile tests and warned the measure was a prelude to a renewed Korean War. The North also said it would "bolster its war deterrent for self-defense," a typical phrase often used to refer to the country's nuclear weapons program. After 10 days of debate, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution Saturday condemning North Korea's multiple missile launches on July 5. The council demanded that North Korea "suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program" and re-establish a...

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that Israel has the right to defend its citizens, but criticized the policy of targeted killings, saying that they are like, "executions without trial." Annan also expressed concern over the firing of Kassam rockets from Gaza into Israel and called on both Israelis and Palestinians to respect international law and to take steps to quell the violence.

Japan refused to join Germany, India and Brazil in a new bid to get permanent seats on an expanded UN Security Councilon Saturday, deciding instead to negotiate with the United States to try to come up with a proposal that Washington won't oppose. Japan's decision not to co-sponsor the same General Assembly resolution it wholeheartedly supported last year with the three other countries was the latest twist in the bitterly divisive debate on reshaping the powerful Security Council to reflect the realities of the 21st century. The decision by Japan to strike out on its own left the so-called Group...

Armed Palestinians briefly seized the United Nations club in Gaza City early Sunday, throwing two explosive devices. They officials said five armed men tied up the guard at the building before throwing the explosives. No one was hurt, they said. The building was damaged by the blasts. Plaster from the ceiling littered the floor of the seaside building. The UN club is known as the only place in Gaza City where alcohol is served, but it was closed when the attack took place after 2 a.m. (0000 GMT). Only foreigners are allowed inside. One of the explosives damaged the bar...