Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:33:58 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Claudia Rosett :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Claudia+Rosett istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iranian-dissidents-gather-to-discuss-regime-change/56775/ Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST PARIS — Regime change for Iran may be a dead letter in the loftiest councils of world affairs, but as a prime goal, it is very much alive in the plans of some 200 exiled Iranian dissidents who gathered here in a basement conference hall these past three days to launch a movement they are calling "Solidarity Iran." Inspired by the Polish Solidarity union movement that helped bring down communist rule in the 1980s, the aim of this new Solidarity is to give a more coherent shape and identity to... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/uns-reading-list-for-n-korea/55218/ Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 EST Not only has the United Nations been caught funneling cash to the rogue regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il, but it's now emerging that the U.N. Development Program was ordering up books critical of America and President Bush for North Korean arms experts in Pyongyang, and accepted a shipment on March 14, almost two weeks after the UNDP announced that it was suspending operations in North Korea. The UNDP-sponsored reading list for North Korean officialdom includes such titles as "Taming... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/let-them-eat-nothing/53139/ Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EST When the Soviet system imploded in 1991, there was great concern that in the immediate aftermath the populations of post-communist nations, suddenly cut loose from Big Brother, might starve. They didn't. Although life was hard, people used their newfound freedoms to cope. But in one of the Soviet-engendered communist states where the totalitarian regime survived — North Korea — the result was famine. Perhaps because no TV cameras were allowed in, and far too little information was allowed out... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/national/mystery-surfaces-over-apartment-of-kofi-annan/45403/ Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST As Secretary-General Annan prepares to leave his post at the United Nations, a mystery is surfacing surrounding his apartment on Roosevelt Island, subsidized by New York taxpayers, which is still in use by the family of his brother, Kobina Annan. The apartment was where Mr. Annan and his wife lived before 1997, when he became secretary-general. The Roosevelt Island home is part of an estate of low-rent state-regulated housing. For years, the Annans saved considerable sums by occupying an... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/arts/courtier-to-annan/43530/ Wed, 15 Nov 2006 00:00:00 EST Not so long ago, Kofi Annan was up to his ears in the Oil for Food scandal, and his legacy as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations was on its way down the drain. He was ducking questions from his critics. But he did decide to cooperate to an extraordinary extent with one reporter, James Traub, a contributor to The New York Times Magazine. Mr. Traub wished to write a book about the U.N., and about Mr. Annan — whom he considered the incarnation of the institution. Starting in June... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/un-secretary-generals-brother-kobina-annan-may/18598/ Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST To the cast of characters caught up in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, investigators have reportedly added another name, that of the secretary-general's brother, Kobina Annan. That means at least three members of the Annan clan are now under scrutiny, including Secretary-General Annan himself, his globetrotting son, Kojo Annan, and his brother, who is Ghana's ambassador to Morocco. This latest news comes from London, where the Sunday Times's Robert Winnett reported yesterday that the U.N... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/ruin-by-design/17707/ Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST To whatever extent the recent United Nations report on Zimbabwe calls attention to the brutalities of the country's tyrant, President Robert Mugabe, the U.N. has performed a service. But as far as the report translates into nothing more than a fresh bout of aid funneled via Mugabe's regime, this U.N. initiative will only compound the suffering in Zimbabwe - where the government's latest atrocity has been to "clean up" the cities by evicting hundreds of thousands of poor people, destroying their... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/all-the-secretary-generals-men-the-tangled-web/17350/ Thu, 21 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Reforming the United Nations is a tall order at the best of times. Today it stands no chance at all unless it starts by removing the network that during Kofi Annan's more than seven years as secretary-general has already helped him "reform" the world body - twice. Ever since oil-for-food documents began spilling out of post-Baathist Baghdad more than two years ago, offering a glimpse of the United Nations' inner workings, scandal has been erupting throughout Mr. Annan's secretariat. Top... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/saddam-and-al-qaeda/16998/ Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST President Bush has given some good speeches lately, including his talk June 29 at Fort Bragg, N.C., in which he stressed some of the reasons for going into Iraq, and his address this past Monday at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va., in which he talked about the role of intelligence in defeating terrorists and stressed that "the heart of our strategy is this: Free societies are peaceful societies." But there's another speech Mr. Bush still needs to give. That would be the one in which he says: I... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/da-pursuing-criminal-probe-of-aide-at-un/16744/ Mon, 11 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST The Manhattan District Attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into the former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, the DA's office has just confirmed for the first time to The New York Sun. The probe, apparently well advanced, involves allegations of commercial bribery related to Mr. Sevan's role as executive director from 1997-2003 of the oil-for-food relief program for Iraq, then under U.N. sanctions against the former regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sevan was... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/tea-party-at-turtle-bay/16320/ Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST The threat of the U.S. withholding cash from the United Nations has sent Kofi Annan into overdrive recently, with the secretary-general putting his name to yet another round of articles proclaiming such stuff as a fresh start and much progress and grand plans for reforming the U.N. - which he is particularly practiced at, having done it twice already, in 1997 and 2002. This is a moment at which there is much to be learned about the U.N., though less from Mr. Annan's epistles than from the... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/mystery-of-un-scandal-memo-surrounds-identity/15686/ Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST One of the mysteries shaping up in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is, who is "KA"? Those initials appear in the memo that surfaced last week, implicating Secretary-General Annan, apparently referred to in the document as "the SG," in the lobbying process with which a Swiss-based company, Cotecna Inspections SA, in late 1998 went about obtaining a fat U.N. oil-for-food contract. It did this while employing as a consultant the secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan. If those initials, KA, refer to... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/will-anyone-answer/15608/ Fri, 17 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST Allowing Libyan tyrant Moammar Gadhafi to make a mockery of U.S. policy is not a good idea, especially not when the Bush administration has been talking Gadhafi up for the past 18 months as one of our newest allies in the war on terror and an example to other enemy regimes of how to win America's respect and goodwill. Gadhafi has lots to snicker about right now, at our expense - as the U.S. continues to give him a free pass over manhandling Libya's most prominent democratic dissident, Fathi... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/galloway-deplores-us-probe-of-un/13995/ Wed, 18 May 2005 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - A left-wing member of the British Parliament, George Galloway, named by Senate investigators as having been granted lucrative rights by Saddam Hussein to buy oil under the U.N. oil-for-food program, testified under oath yesterday, declaring, "I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf." Mr. Galloway's performance, in which he not only declared his innocence but also aired his anti-American views, was the main event at yesterday's... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/congressional-team-and-volcker-committee-wrangle/13500/ Mon, 9 May 2005 00:00:00 EST The hottest question right now in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is who has rights to boxfuls of secret evidence concerning the secretary-general of the world body, Kofi Annan. Congressional investigators and the United Nations' own inquiry team, led by former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, are wrangling over material amassed by Mr. Volcker's investigation that reportedly touches on what Mr. Annan knew about his son's lucrative U.N.-related business deals. Following Mr. Volcker's March 29 interim... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/why-america-stands-astride-the-world/13345/ Thu, 5 May 2005 00:00:00 EST It's always risky to celebrate security and good times, especially in an age when there is no way to rule out that along with the usual perils of life, we will suffer another terrorist attack. But this spring, more than 3 1/2 years after September 11, it does seem that since that day America has weathered a rough passage awfully well. That, and with the cherry trees just done blooming in Washington and New York's Central Park full of flowers (and, in the grand old tradition, amateur baseball... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/congress-probes-routing-of-funds-to-suspect-firms/13260/ Wed, 4 May 2005 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - Investigators looking into the U.N. oil-for-food program, poring over documents provided to Congress here, are discovering that vast sums intended for humanitarian purposes in Iraq were rerouted through a global web of companies with links to terrorist funding and arms trafficking. The fresh clues to the money trail are emerging from a House hearing that focused last week on BNP Paribas, the French bank picked by the United Nations to service the bulk of the U.N.-supervised deals... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/rohrabacher-to-probe-role-of-french-bank/12872/ Wed, 27 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Next up in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is a trip down the money trail, by way of the French bank tapped by the United Nations - in cahoots with Saddam Hussein - to handle the main escrow account of the graft-laden U.N. program. Tomorrow, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing delving into some of the oil-for-food banking details. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican of California who will lead the hearing, expects that with some of the material due to be... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/stale-kofi/12588/ Thu, 21 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Yet more scandal at the United Nations? Secret deals, millions in bribes, leading to billions in global kickbacks? What to do? Have no fear, reform is here. The United Nations has already put in place a sweeping set of improvements, with Secretary-General Kofi Annan reorganizing and streamlining the world body to bring about, according to a U.N. reform dossier, "a culture of greater openness, coherence, innovation and confidence." A blue-ribbon panel has "set more stringent standards for... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/canadian-tycoon-could-assist-in-un-probe/12358/ Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Who are the two mysterious high-ranking U.N. officials fingered in one of the latest indictments of the oil-for-food scandal? The indictment, issued last Thursday, doesn't give the names of these two U.N. officials, designating them only as U.N. officials "#1" and "#2." But we do know the grand jury thinks they took millions in bribes from the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in exchange for trying to shape the oil-for-food relief program along lines that helped Saddam manipulate and... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/in-deep-trouble/11071/ Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST There he goes again. "This hall has heard enough high-sounding declarations to last us for some decades to come," Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the United Nations General Assembly Monday. "What is needed now is not more declarations and promises." For announcing a U.N. reform program, it was a good start. Had Mr. Annan then apologized for the gross failure of his previous reforms, launched in 1997, and left the stage, there might be a lot more reason to hope the U.N. will shape up. Instead... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/syrian-dissidents-find-their-voice-as-lebanon/10968/ Wed, 23 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT, Lebanon - With Lebanese democrats speaking up and Syria's occupying forces pulling out, it may sound unsurprising that one of Beirut's leading Arabic newspapers ran a searing critique this week of Baathist rule in Damascus, under the headline: "Why Lebanon Is Becoming Larger and Syria Smaller." Except the author of this piece is not Lebanese, but Syrian, writing - at serious risk - from Damascus. Signing himself as Hakam al-Baba, this journalist goes on to identify himself as someone... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/as-window-of-opportunity-opens-in-lebanon-hope/10830/ Mon, 21 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT, Lebanon - Above a busy shopping street where a bomb blew out the front walls of a building Friday night, injuring nine people, there now stretches a long row of glittering lights. Local authorities have rekindled the decorations left over from Christmas. "They want to show the bombers that they are building," a policeman guarding the site said. After three decades that spanned a civil war followed by 15 years of brutality, jailing, and murder under Baathist Syrian dominion, such... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/lebanon-celebrates-freedom-with-humor/10717/ Thu, 17 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT, Lebanon - Along with Monday's landmark demonstration for freedom, Lebanese democrats are sending around by e-mail their own deck of cards, featuring the most wanted - or rather the most unwanted - of Lebanon's Syrian-backed regime. Like the deck dispensed by America almost two years ago in Iraq, each card has a picture, starting with President Lahoud as the ace of diamonds, over the caption "Puppet President," and including, as the insultingly inferior nine of clubs, Prime Minister... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/million-lebanese-stage-massive-retort/10560/ Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT - Flags fluttering, horns honking, and fingers flashing V for victory, Lebanon's opposition converged on downtown Beirut yesterday in the biggest democratic protest in the history of the modern Middle East. Their numbers - about a million strong - were a retort to the rival protests staged last week by the terrorist group Hezbollah, and a message to each other and the world that the Lebanese people are serious in their demands for - as the crowd chanted over and over - "Freedom... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/lebanese-staging-rallies-demanding-the-truth/10504/ Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT - With a crucial democratic protest planned for today, members of Lebanon's opposition held a vigil last evening, setting out candles across a big swathe of downtown Martyrs' Square to spell out in letters of flame, in Arabic and English, what they are seeking: "The Truth." These demonstrators want the truth about who was behind the bomb blast that on February 14 killed Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister. Today's protest will mark the four-week anniversary of his murder, which... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/showdown-shapes-up-for-both-lebanon-and-bush/10412/ Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT - With the reinstatement yesterday of the same pro-Syrian prime minister who resigned 11 days ago, Omar Karami, Lebanon's democratic spring is turning into a high-stakes showdown not only for the Lebanese, but for President Bush's policy of busting up the autocratic rackets of the Middle East. Right now, the situation looks increasingly dire for this country's democratic opposition. But plenty turns on whether Mr. Bush, who has promised the democrats support in their bid to end Syrian... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/lebanese-democrats-under-siege/10364/ Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT - As dusk falls, Martyrs' Square lights up, and Lebanon's Cedar Revolution pushes on. The democratic movement to oust Syria finds itself increasingly under siege, following a huge demonstration in Beirut Tuesday by the pro-Syrian terrorist group Hezbollah and reports yesterday that the pro-Syrian prime minister who resigned last week, Omar Karami, will return to office. Despite the growing risk of Syrian reprisals, scores of democratic protesters gather in what has become over the past... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/sharansky-of-saigon/10371/ Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST There's been a lot of talk since September 11 about how President Bush's war-lovin' ways have galvanized terrorists, recruiting jihadis to the ranks. What's increasingly evident, however, is that the character suffering the real blowback is Osama bin Laden, who, as it turns out, jolted the U.S. into a global recruiting drive for democrats. Faced with an unprecedented attack on American shores, Mr. Bush smashed the mold for Middle East policy, and with the invasion of Iraq lit a beacon for... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/big-show-of-force-by-hezbollah-spells-new-trouble/10264/ Wed, 9 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST BEIRUT - The demonstration convened yesterday by the terrorist group Hezbollah, a show of force that brought hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets in support of continued Syrian sway over the country, represents the darkest sign yet that plenty of difficulties lie ahead for Lebanon's three-week-old democratic uprising. Roads into the capital were choked with traffic as demonstrators arrived in vans and taxis and on motorbikes, flourishing pictures of the Syrian dictator, Bashar... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/real-refugee-scandal/9660/ Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST So prolific in scandal has the United Nations become that it's getting hard to keep tabs. You can surf the channels, from rape by peacekeepers in the Congo, to theft at the World Meteorological Organization, to a Human Rights Commission crammed with despots; from inadequate auditing to botched management to wasted money to running the biggest heist in the history of humanitarian work - the oil-for-food program in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. An aggrieved Secretary-General Annan has chosen to describe... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/one-down-two-to-go/9015/ Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST It's not only in the Middle East that Iraq's election lights the way. Let us turn to what may be the world's most abandoned population, 23 million souls living under a government that surely qualifies as the worst totalitarian state on the planet: North Korea. Long viewed as home to hopelessly brainwashed generations, marching in lockstep to the glory of the tyrannical father-son Kim dynasty, North Korea has been pretty much written off the world's list of candidates for transition to democracy... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/volckers-report-raises-questions-of-uns-role/8588/ Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST AMMAN, Jordan - The interim report on the United Nations' scandal-wracked oil-for-food program is due to be released tomorrow, according to the U.N.-authorized Independent Inquiry Committee, led by a former Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker. With controversy swirling around the U.N.'s relief program for Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Mr. Volcker's interim report will offer the first findings of this investigation, authorized last March when Secretary-General Annan, after a long bout of... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/reform-unneeds-regime-change/6981/ Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST UNITED NATIONS - The advance of liberty and its attendant institutions can be a rough business, provoking stiff resistance by those who find their interests most threatened: the dictators, cronies, and retinues of careerocrats who have already made their compromises of conscience. And although specifics vary, there are some broad, familiar patterns to the process of genuine reform. Protests break out, criticism once whispered in backrooms is heard on the streets, misrule and corruption are... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/never-say-never/6399/ Thu, 16 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Orange, rose, yellow. These are the colors not just of sunrise, but of a few of the many "people power" revolutions that over the past generation have been by increments changing the world. Yellow was the Philippines in 1986. Rose was the former Soviet republic of Georgia last year. Now we see an exuberant orange in Ukraine, where despite election fraud, poisoning, and the displeasure of the Kremlin, democratic candidate Viktor Yushchenko looks poised to win a revote December 26. I'll get to... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/contracts-chief-shown-to-be-annan-sons-main/6076/ Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST UNITED NATIONS - The next chapter of the Kofi Annan saga will focus on whether there was any real substance to the job for which the secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, received lucrative payments during a period of years in which he was ostensibly working in West Africa. The matter is surfacing in new documents coming to light as investigators scramble to find out why the young son of the secretary-general was put on the payroll by a Swiss-based company, Cotecna Inspection Services SA, that... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/go-ahead-make-our-day/5875/ Tue, 7 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST If Kofi Annan keeps his job, the upside is that we are going to learn a lot more about what ails the United Nations. Secretary-General Annan may not be the only cause of the secretive and self-serving U.N. system that produced the huge oil-for-food scandal, which has now led to calls for his resignation. But Mr. Annan has run the U.N. Secretariat for almost eight years now, and his handling of the top job is an excellent guide to the U.N.'s ills. For starters, the longer Mr. Annan stays, the... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/secretary-and-son/5671/ Thu, 2 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST "He is a grown man, and I don't get involved with his activities and he doesn't get involved with mine." Thus did the United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, distance himself at speed Monday from news that his own son, Kojo Annan, had received money right up until early this year from one of the U.N.'s prime contractors under the oil-for-food program. The elder Mr. Annan pronounced himself "disappointed," "surprised" and - lest he look completely clueless - able to understand "the... CLAUDIA ROSETT http://www.nysun.com/foreign/annans-son-took-payments-through-2004/5372/ Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST One of the next big chapters in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal will involve the family of the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whose son turns out to have been receiving payments as recently as early this year from a key contractor in the oil-for-food program. The secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, was previously reported to have worked for a Swiss-based company called Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/america-just-be-yourself/2876/ Thu, 7 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST "America addressed the earth: Do you love me as I love you?" - W.H. Auden, "In Time of War." Auden wrote those lines in 1938,on the eve of World War II, and in them he summed up one of the basic traits of the American character. More than most, we want to be liked. Maybe that's because we are naive, or absurdly romantic. More likely it's because we are a country of immigrants, a democracy in which mobility and markets reward richly those who find ways to get along. And just possibly it's... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/whats-illegal/2162/ Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST When United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan opined last week to the BBC that the American led overthrow of Saddam Hussein had been "illegal," two words came instantly to my mind: baby food. No, I'm not comparing Mr. Annan's thoughts to pabulum. He is a smart man, adept enough that even in his BBC moment of condemning America, perhaps mindful that America is the U.N.'s chief financial backer, he took the trouble to blur responsibility for his own words, amending his use of "I" to the royal... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/worse-than-abu-ghraib/1475/ Thu, 9 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Unless someone with influence acts soon, this column must serve as an obituary for the hopes held out earlier this year of political reform in Muammar Gadhafi's Libya. More concretely, we may soon be reading obituaries for one of Libya's top democratic dissidents, Fathi Eljahmi - who is reportedly ill and in danger of dying in the hands of Libya's security police. For anyone wondering why we should care, apart from such vague considerations as sheer human decency, the latest answer lies in the... Claudia Rosett http://www.nysun.com/opinion/escape-from-kerryland/856/ Thu, 26 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST Time for a deep breath. We've hit that late-summer stretch when everyone is waiting for autumn, and the news seems stuck in endless replay. Seven years ago, we were about to hit round-the-clock eulogies to Princess Di. Three years ago, it was Rep. Gary Condit, 24/7, the former congressman, since cleared of suspicion in the death of his young lover, in case anyone has trouble remembering what topped the talk shows in the weeks just before September 11, 2001. This year, we have Senator Kerry's...