Good News and Bad News for Kofi

First the headache. Two Euro based papers are reporting that the secretary general's son, Kojo, received $300,000 from a company awarded a contract in the oil for food program. That is double of what was originally disclosed. In addition a report revealed and the UN confirmed that it will be reimbursing a portion of the legal fees of the suspended head of the oil for food program. The money will come from the very program he has been accused of ripping off.

The Washington Times lauds Kofi's reformist efforts and reports praise for Annan's call to reform human rights monitoring. NGOs and humanitarian law experts seem to like the proposal for a new human rights council although some dissension was still heard from member states. A Mid East diplomat and another from a developing country raised objections. A EUnuch also questioned the effectiveness of the new body his (or her) concern was that "It could end up just a club of democratic states who are resented by the rest of the membership and may in fact weaken the reporting aspects in countries further." So I suppose we need to make sure that we throw in a dictatorship or two to even things out.