Claudia Rosett has Canadian content for today's WSJ Opinion Journal;
In the course of telling the press on Monday that he "cannot recall a single instance" of contact or discussion with officials responsible for the scandal- plagued Oil for Food program, Mr. Strong did confirm that he has been friendly for years and had a business relationship back in 1997 with a Korean, Tongsun Park. Mr. Park achieved prominence in the 1970s as the go-between who shuttled hundreds of thousands in bribes from the regime of former South Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee to assorted members of the U.S. Congress, in the scandal that became known as Koreagate.Even if Mr. Strong had the best of intentions, his decision as a high-ranking U.N. official to be involved in any business relationship with the star bag man of Koreagate suggests seriously odd judgment. That should have been obvious even before U.S. federal prosecutors charged Mr. Park last week with accepting some $2 million from Saddam Hussein to convey yet more millions to two (so-far unnamed) high-ranking U.N. officials in an effort to shape the 1996-2003 Oil for Food program to facilitate Saddam's sanctions-busting embezzlement of billions meant for the people of Iraq.
It's almost as if they all knew each other.
Posted by Kate at April 20, 2005 10:01 AMMy apologies as this is unrelated to Maurice but it makes interesting reading. Kate can boot me off if she thinks I should be sticking to the point.
Lorrie Goldstein writes in the Toronto Sun...
"Did you know that an Environics Research poll released last week found that a startling 73% of Canadians surveyed believe Prime Minister Paul Martin is either "very responsible" or "somewhat responsible" for AdScam?This is devastating news for the Liberals because it flies in the face of their claims that Canadians don't blame Martin for AdScam and that he's deeply trusted by voters, which they say will be the central theme of their next election campaign."
[...]
"But you wouldn't know any of this from the highly selective reporting of this poll last week by the CBC, which commissioned it, and by other media, who, incredibly, portrayed it as a positive finding for Martin."
You can read the rest here Are the media shilling for Martin?.
Posted by: oltx at April 20, 2005 10:31 AMGee... do ya mind waiting until I'm done my morning postings?
;-)
Posted by: Kate at April 20, 2005 10:44 AMI would suggest that our American friends follow the money flowing through some Power Corp subsidiaries. If I needed launder a few billion, I think it would be helpful to own a good piece of some European financial institutions.. It would also be helpful to have your hand in a newspapers and magazines too, in case you needed to spin or distract or whatever. And if a friendly despot with lots of black gold needed to sell some, it sure would be helpful to have one of these too. Now, why was it again, that Canada, along with France, didn't back the US on this Iraq thing?
Posted by: BrightLeaf at April 20, 2005 10:54 AMI found some old URLs lying around that placed Strong as a faculty member at this institution dedicated to ridding the world of tyrants and terrorists. but seems that he has moved on. Fear not, though, my fellow citizens, as we still have good Canadian representation there trhough this fellow good Liberal, who was who was appointed Canada's first Commissioner of Official Languages by Pierre Trudeau in 1970, was formerly chairman of the CRTC (ensuring we have unbiased media), and notable Associate of Ernst & Young (famed of late by their admirable political party audit skills).
Posted by: BrightLeaf at April 21, 2005 1:00 PM