Update on the oil-for-food scandal

SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo) is promising yet more reforms. He will do such things etc etc.

This time round he is promising something more substantial, that is a UN definition of terrorism and some effort to deal with it. How, we do not know. Perhaps, he will divert them all into profitable business activity.

More to the point, his promises remain extremely vague, and attempts on the part of British diplomats to get some definitions, have so far failed. The chances they will go on failing because in order to deal with the terrorism issue the UN is going to have to do some thinking about the Middle East and about suicide bombers in every country, not just Britain.

Meanwhile, the oil-for-food scandal will not go away, much as the SecGen would like it to. Investigators have found a whole network of accounts in different countries that were operated by Benon Sevan, the former head of the programme, who is the subject of a criminal investigation in New York.

So far as anyone knows Mr Sevan still maintains that the $160,000 he received on top of his extremely handsome salary and even more handsome perks was a legacy from an aunt.

Oh yes, and SecGen Annan is still suffering from selective memory loss.