GBPPR 'Zine
        
Issue #39    /    The Monthly Journal of the American Hacker    /    July 2007

"This morning, VG hosted an online Q. & A. with Jan Egeland, former Kofi Annan underling at the UN and soon-to-be director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.  One might have expected tough questions about, say, what Pedro A. Sanjuan has called 'the anti-Semitic UN culture,' about the UN's sky-high levels of corruption, and/or about the multitude of rapes that were revealed a while back to have been committed by UN peacekeepers.  One would certainly think there'd be a question or two about the Oil-for-Food scandal, which Claudia Rosett has called 'the biggest fraud in the history of humanitarian relief,' and in which Annan has been deeply implicated.

But this is Norway, where the UN is sacred and Annan a saint -- and where the scandal was hardly reported at all.  Therefore the Q. & A. read almost entirely like this:

Q.  Is Kofi Annan as nice and sincere as he appears to be?  He seems like an unbelievably decent man!

A.  Yes, he is a really good human being."

--- May 8, 2007 blog entry by Bruce Bawer.  (www.brucebawer.com)

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