Kofi Annan

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 26--UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was on Tuesday questioned for a third time by the commission investigating the scandal-tainted Iraq oil-for-food program, Reuters quoted a UN spokesman as saying.
Annan has appointed Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, to lead a probe of the $67 billion program, set up in late 1996 to allow civilian goods into Iraq in an effort to ease the impact of UN sanctions.
"He has met more than once for an extended period of time with Volcker and his investigators," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in answer to queries.
He originally said two interviews took place last year but later updated the information, saying the latest round was on Tuesday afternoon and lasted one hour and 35 minutes. Previous interviews were conducted on Nov. 9 for one hour and 45 minutes and on Dec. 3 for 25 minutes.
"Yes, the secretary-general is part of the investigation, is subject like anyone else involved in oil-for-food in the secretariat," Eckhard said. "He has been questioned and most likely will continued to be questioned as Volcker's investigation continues."
The spokesman said the meetings took place in Annan's office at UN headquarters. Volcker is due to give a preliminary report at the end of the month or early in February.
Among the allegations is that Kojo Annan, the UN leader's son, was paid a total of $125,000 by Geneva-based firm Cotecna, which inspected goods coming to Iraq. UN officials have denied Annan was aware or involved in contract negotiations.
The payments were part of an agreement for the younger Annan, who worked in West Africa rather than Iraq, not to join a firm competing with Cotecna after he left the company, Eckhard said previously Since the end of the war, Iraq has released lists of oil vouchers and kickbacks by the former Iraqi government.
The lists disclose legitimate contracts to oil companies but they are also a veritable who's who of political groups and individuals from whom the former Iraqi government wanted to buy influence to get sanctions lifted.

Afghan refugee children watch their parents preparing to leave their camp in Quetta for their homeland, November 4. (AFP File Photo)

GENEVA, Jan. 26--Hoping to cash-in on an unprecedented wave of charity that followed last month's tsunami disaster, the UN Children's Fund launched an annual appeal on Wednesday for children in other crisis zones such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia, AFP reported.
The 763-million-dollar (588-million-euro) appeal, which includes a one-off demand for 289 million dollars for Sudan, was outlined in a UNICEF report on its work for children in the world's persistent trouble spots.
"We are appealing to the same generosity of spirit that brought people and nations together around the tsunami crisis," the agency's executive director Carol Bellamy said in a statement.
Last year's response to a UNICEF appeal for 516 million dollars, however, only attracted 56 percent of the amount, with attempts to generate funds for projects in countries such as Afghanistan falling well short of the mark.
"The camera has a way of shifting focus when a new emergency strikes, constantly urging our attentions onward," Bellamy said.
UNICEF, which is dedicated to child health, education and welfare, earmarked the highest portion of its latest appeal for relief work in Sudan, in particular the strife-torn region of Darfur, which until the tsunami was described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Afghanistan, where one in nine children does not survive his or her first year and one in six fails to live beyond five, is second on UNICEF's funding list, requiring some 81.5 million dollars for relief projects.
"While considerable progress has been made for women and children in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the country still has some of the worst development indicators in the world," the 240-page UNICEF Humanitarian Action Report 2005 said.
It blamed this on the legacy of nearly three decades of war, drought and displacement that have left 60 percent of Afghan households without access to safe drinking water and one third without adequate sanitation.
Ethiopia was set for the third largest chunk of funding at 38.3 million dollars, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo at 34.6 million dollars.

MOSCOW, Jan. 26--Russia's prosecutor general said Wednesday that Moscow would pursue a criminal case for bribery against Ukrainian prime minister designate Yulia Timoshenko, AFP reported.
"This case will be investigated in line with Russian law, no more, no less," Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov told reporters.
Timoshenko, a fiery politician with a strong nationalist support base, has been tapped by new Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for the post of prime minister. Russia has issued an arrest warrant for her on charges of bribing Russian defense officials over gas contracts.
The decision to name Timoshenko as candidate for premier came as Yushchenko visited Moscow Monday in a bid to mend fences with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had supported the Western-leaning Yushchenko's pro-Moscow rival, Viktor Yanukovich.
The move was seen as certain to rile Moscow, which sees her as anti-Russian, and the population of the Russian-speaking east and south of Ukraine which had largely backed Yanukovich.
Known as the "gas princess" for her good looks and experience in the energy sector, she joined forces with Yushchenko in June and became one of the most visible faces of the "orange revolution," that brought the opposition leader to power after mass protests over rigged elections.
A month before the first round of last year's presidential race, Russian military prosecutors opened an investigation against her, charging she had bribed a Russian defense ministry official while heading the energy concern Unified Energy Systems.
She refused to appear to answer the charges, accusing Kuchma of making a "deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin ... to destroy those who are open to the victory of Viktor Yushchenko."
On Monday, Putin declined to comment on her candidacy, which the Ukrainian parliament is expected to vote on early next month. "We should not judge Ukraine's new government," Putin told reporters in Moscow.

QUETTA, Pakistan, Jan. 26--Pakistani forces, already stretched battling Islamic militants and guarding the Indian frontier, could be sliding into a protracted separatist conflict in a key province bordering Afghanistan, Reuters quoted military officials and politicians as saying.
Tribal separatists in the southwestern province of Baluchistan have stepped up a long-simmering insurgency in recent weeks with bomb and rocket attacks on security forces, government buildings and vital economic installations.
The most serious attack came on Jan. 11, when tribesmen fired dozens of rockets at the country's largest gas field at Sui, 400 km southeast of the provincial capital Quetta, killing up to 15 people and cutting supplies for over a week.
When the central government moved troops to Sui to guard against more attacks, militants responded with several assaults on rail lines in Baluchistan, one of which wounded five people, and also bombed a government building in Quetta.
"The militants are heavily armed and operate training camps in areas inhabited mostly by the powerful Marri and Bugti tribes," a military official said on condition of anonymity.
"The situation is grave and the violence could escalate."
On Tuesday, authorities halted night-time train services in Baluchistan, fearing more attacks, and security has been increased at key installations throughout the province.
Tribal separatists have been battling for independence or autonomy for their strategic province bordering Afghanistan ever since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, when colonial Britain granted independence to the Indian sub-continent.
Since then there have been four major armed revolts, the last in 1970s, which was brutally crushed by the military at a cost of thousands of lives.
Legal nationalist groups, which deny links to the militants but broadly support their agenda, say the government's failure to respond to demands for autonomy, jobs and higher royalty payments from mineral resources was strengthening radicals.

COLOMBO,
Sri Lanka, Jan. 26--The United Nations children's fund Wednesday accused Tamil Tiger rebels of recruiting at least 40 child soldiers since tsunamis devastated Sri Lanka's coastlines and killed nearly 31,000 people, AFP said.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had taken three children from a relief center for survivors in the northeastern region of Trincomalee and another from the neighboring Batticaloa district, UNICEF said.
The other children had been recruited from areas of the northeast held by the guerrillas, UNICEF spokesman Geoffrey Keele said.
"We have 40 cases of confirmed child recruitment since the tsunamis," Keele said. "We had hoped that with such a disaster the LTTE would have ended this practice. But unfortunately no." A child as young as 13 was among the 22 boys and 18 girls recruited by the Tigers despite repeated international condemnation of the practice. Most of them were aged between 15 and 17.
Keele said UNICEF was involved in extensive post-tsunami relief operations and had hoped the Tigers would stop taking children into their ranks.
The UN agency had initially raised the cases of 29 children with the Tigers but the figure later rose to 40. There was no immediate response from the rebels, he said.
Tiger guerrillas were not immediately available for comment but have in the past denied recruiting children. They have said they are providing food and shelter to poor children.
The question of child recruitment was taken up with the LTTE last week by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which had also expressed serious concern about the issue.
UNHCR International Protection department director Erika Feller said officials raised claims by rights groups that the Tigers were using the catastrophe to recruit child soldiers in a meeting with LTTE political chief S.P. Thamilselvan in a meeting last week.
While Thamilselvan had denied the claim and attributed it to "misreporting by journalists," child recruitment had long been "an issue" between the UN and the LTTE, she said.

Thaksin Shinawatra

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan. 26--Malaysia Wednesday criticized Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra for telling reporters that he wanted an alleged Muslim separatist extradited from Malaysia, saying he should have followed diplomatic channels, AFP reported.
"This is not the way to cooperate with each other," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told a news conference when asked about Thaksin's statement that Thailand's most-wanted man had been arrested in Malaysia.
"We can't react to a news report. Whatever it is that needs to be done, there are proper channels between Malaysia and Thailand," Syed Hamid said testily.
"If they use the proper channels then Malaysia would react accordingly. There are rules pertaining to extradition."
Asked whether he could confirm the arrest, he replied: "No."
"If Thailand wants to know about any arrest they should contact their counterparts. It should not be done in...requests through the media."
Thaksin said earlier that Malaysia had arrested Doramae Kuteh, also known as Chae Kumae Kuteh. He is alleged to be the mastermind behind a January 2004 arms depot raid that reignited unrest in Thailand's Muslim-majority south which has left at least 570 people dead.
"Absolutely we want him extradited back here as he has been involved with many incidents. He has been the real mastermind
(behind the unrest) including last year's robbery of government-owned weapons," Thaksin told reporters.
Thaksin did not elaborate on how and when the suspect was arrested but said he was captured alone and detained under Malaysia's Internal Security Act, which allows suspects to be detained without trial, for also posing a threat there.
"We are coordinating with Malaysia to determine his nationality, but initially we will take part in investigations and we are now checking for evidence as well as on his Thai nationality," the Thai premier said.
Doramae Kuteh is wanted in mainly Buddhist Thailand for premeditated murder and inciting a guerrilla movement and had a bounty of five million baht (about 130,000 dollars) on his head.
He reportedly fled to Malaysia after the arms depot raid in which attackers killed four soldiers and stole hundreds of rifles.