U.N.: Annan's Son Got Payments on Deal (Iraqi oil-for-food)

[Khephra]

UNITED NATIONS -- The son of Secretary-General Kofi Annan received payments from a firm with a U.N. Iraqi oil-for-food contract more than four years longer than the world body previously admitted, the U.N. spokesman said Friday.

Spokesman Fred Eckhard said the panel investigating alleged corruption in the oil for food program has been told by Kojo Annan's lawyer about the payments.

"There is nothing illegal in this," Eckhard said of the payments from the Swiss firm Cotecna. However, it was an embarrassing moment for the United Nations to have to admit that its earlier information was wrong.

Eckhard said that Kojo Annan's attorney told him that the younger Annan "continued to receive monthly payments beyond the end of 1999, when we previously thought they had ceased, through February 2004."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-un-corruption,0,1252659.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[Ima]

1. Like father

like son. Who is surprised?

[Sara Beverley]

2. Sorta like payments to Cheney and others from Halliburton?

Watch how this gets more coverage than the soliders we lost the past three days.

[trotsky]

3. It's red meat for the xenophobic right-wing base.

They've been frothing at the mouth over this "scandal" for months. It doesn't matter to them one iota that The Dick made illegal deals with Saddam during the 90s.

[CBHagman]

6. Oh, Safire is going to dance for joy over this.

This is one of his favorite pontification topics (as though Nixon people deserve to hold any sort of moral authority). Look for the creeps at the Washington Times to have a Schadenfreude festival, too.

[KoKo]

4. Somehow, I suspect that Annan's son and Anann have been "set up."

Why? because I don't believe ANYTHING from US Press. And, because I know the Repugs have been after dismantling the UN since it's founding.

Who knows what the truth of this is. Everyone is into everything for their own gain...and the "truth" be damned by the "spinners" from all sides.

I can't say I'm a fan of Annan, Sr. because he never mentioned the boxes of Petitions we all signed until the wee hours of the morning befor the Iraq Invasion petitioning the UN TO STOP THE IRAQ INVASION. So, I have no great love of the man who couldn't take a word to mention us, if he TRULY wanted to stop Bush. But, I'm not a Diplomat...I'm an Activists and perhaps he had his reasons...but I have to put that into consideration when I try to defend him.

Still...This appears to me to be another Bush/PNAC attempt to destroy another institution which is the last tiny barrior between them and World Domination in the NEW AMERICAN CENTURY...according to the MANIACS.

[DaveofCali]

7. Obviously the U.S. News media is in bed with the White House

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. The foreign press is picking up on the story now also

Annan 'disappointed' in non-disclosure of son's payments

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said he was disappointed in new revelations about payments to his son from a firm that had a contract under the UN's oil-for-food programme in Iraq (news - web sites).

The announcement came hours after a columnist in a leading US newspaper, the New York Times, called on Annan to resign over the mounting Iraqi oil scandal.

Annan's spokesman on Friday admitted that the UN chief's son Kojo kept getting payments from Geneva-based Cotecna until February 2004, years later than had been earlier reported, after a US newspaper broke the story last week.

"Naturally, I was very disappointed and surprised," Annan told journalists at UN headquarters in New York, adding that he had not known the payments had continued so long.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041129/wl_mideast_afp/un_annan_041129230207

[DaveofCali]

5. What a joke

The White House is full of criminals trying to play ethics police. Obviously because they see the UN as the enemy.

[TheDebbieDee]

8. And so, the efforts to "Clintonize" the UN continue.

This Annan, Jr. story is pure PROPAGANDA. Unfortunately, it's also probably true.

[struggle4progress]

9. It's like Whitewater: months of wingnut innuendo with nothing behind it.