Claudia Rosett find what Kofi costs these days in a Weekly Standard expose: "Cash—for—Kofi: The U.N. secretary—general wins a half—million dollar prize in Dubai." Apparently the Left's celebrated candidate for Ruler of the World comes at a high price.

But Mr. Annan deserves his Dubai prize for environmentalism. He was judged a panel of his peers:

"Chairing the jury panel, which voted unanimously for Annan, was the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, Klaus Toepfer, and among the jurors was the U.N. undersecretary—general for Economic and Social Affairs, José Antonio Ocampo. Both men owe their current jobs to Annan. Serving as an "observer" of the jury panel was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.N., Munir Akram, who just finished a term as president of the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, which works closely with Annan. On the website for the Zayed prize, the public relations contacts include a U.N. staffer, Nick Nuttall,
listed complete with his U.N. email account and phone number at the Nairobi headquarters of the U.N. Environment Program."

A few weeks ago Mr. Annan publicly berated James Bone, a reporter from the London Times, for asking what happened to the Mercedes Benz which he imported duty—free for his son Kojo, who achieved dubious fame in connnection with the UN Oil—for—Food scam.

"Mr Annan accused Bone of 'misbehaving', of acting childishly and of embarrassing the journalistic fraternity."

But the measly import duties for a Mercedes aren't much compared to a half million bucks from the environmentalist Sheikhs of Dubai. Kofi Annan has been at the UN for a long, long time. He is a creation of its political culture, as well as that of his home state of Ghana, which does not score well on international corruption ratings.

The United Nations is a monopoly brand run by corruptocracies: African, Arab, European, Russian, and Chinese. Add up all the corrupt UN member states and you get a majority of the General Assembly. Add in decades of bureaucratic infiltration of from such member countries into the  Secretariat, and you get a sort of high—flown bureaucratic Mafia, much like the one that runs the European Union. That is why the United Nations is impotent to stop two decades of genocide in the Sudan. That is why Kofi Annan was able to watch the Rwanda genocide, do nothing, and still be elected Secretary General of the "world body." Mr. Annan covered up Rwanda to protect the African bloc in the UN, and the the UN ignores Sudan because it pits jihadi Arabs against Christians and animists, who have no defenders at the United Nations.

And if you really want to know why Mr. Annan received his bucks from Dubai, just click this link.