The Beat Goes On

New York Sun

CLAUDIA ROSETT - Special to the Sun November 26, 2004 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 in Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the oil-for-food program. But
investigators are now looking into new information suggesting that the younger
Annan received far more money over a much longer period, even after his
compensation from Cotecna had reportedly ended.

Reuters

Nov 26, 2004 � By Irwin Arieff  UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The son
of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan got monthly payments more than four years
longer than was previously known from a Swiss firm that won a lucrative
contract under the scandal-ridden U.N. oil-for-food program, the United
Nations said on Friday.

Kojo Annan, the U.N. leader's son, was paid $2,500 monthly � a total of
$125,000 � by Geneva-based Cotecna from the beginning of 2000 through last
February, as part of an agreement not to compete with Cotecna in West Africa
after he left the firm, U.N. chief spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Associated
Press

"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." Eckhard
acknowledged that the United Nations previously said that Annan had stopped
receiving monthly payments at the end of 1999.

CBC
News

Annan's lawyers say he was paid as part of an open-ended agreement that he
wouldn't set up a competing business after he stopped working for the company
in 1998. Cotecna was contracted to ensure the delivery of goods Iraq bought
through a UN-brokered arrangement that ran from 1996 to this autumn. The
program let leader Saddam Hussein trade $46 billion US worth of Iraqi oil for
food and other essential items the country couldn't acquire itself because of
international sanctions.

UPI

U.N.chief returns to HQ for Iraq biz -- United Nations, United States, Nov.
25 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Thursday left Africa to return
to U.N. World Headquarters in New York to deal with the situation in Iraq. A
U.N. official at headquarters told United Press International he was leaving
Burkina-Faso without attending a meeting of French-speaking nations as
originally planned. She said it was not yet known if he would come into his
office Friday. The official had no further details of why Annan was cutting
short his overseas trip. Chief U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard Wednesday told
reporters in New York Annan was considering curtailing his program "to
deal with pressing business here."