Exhibit 1 --
"Oil Loss Hits UN coffers" -- The United Nations is losing its only cash cow with the shutdown of Iraq's oil fields -- with profits of more than $300 million year. The UN has been making a tidy gain acting as a partner for Iraq for the past 11 years to sell its embargoed oil in exchange for food and medical supplies. "It was the only profitable thing at the UN", said one oil analyst. "It paid for a lot of programs and overhead there."
The UN controlled the sale of as much as $200 billion in Iraqi oil since the 1996 economic embargo started against Iraq . . . . "Everyone on the Security Council liked the arrangement because of the relief money it provided," said oil analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron, Hanover. He said the UN also arranged for the purchase of food and pharmaceuticals with the oil money.
Exhibit 2 --
Reuters -- (Paris) "Oil-scandal trial opens in France" -- Thirty-seven defendants will be asked to explain dirty dealings within France's political and business elite involving the embezzlement of some $200 million and former oil giant Elf at a trial that opened yesterday.
The fruit of an eight-year investigation, the trial will expose the use of cash sweeteners to secure contracts for the then state-owned Elf in oil-rich countries, and how some of that cash slipped inot the pockets of certain executives.
It will also rake up well-known sleaze like the kick-backs from an illegal arms deal secured via a now in-famous liaison between then Foreign Minister Roland Dumas and a woman who dubbed herself "The ***** of the Republic."
The trial will be keenly watched in France where the affair has stirred up charges of endemic corruption during the last years of the late President Francois Mitterrand.
Elf was controlled by the state at the time huge sums of cash were allegedly siphoned off into offshore bank accounts between 1989 and 1993. It is now part of French oil major TotalFinaElf, which is negotiating multi-billion-dollar deals with Iraq.
The trial, which is due to run for around four months, follows the longest investigation in French judicial history.
