North Korean Countdown -- Ban and the Bomb

Claudia Rosett

Oct 03, 2006 11:41 AM October 03, 2006 11:41 AM

So … the UN, while failing utterly to stop Iran’s nuclear bomb program, welcomes Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this month to preach his apocalyptic visions on the General Assembly stage.

Then the UN on Monday anoints as its next Secretary-General –with only the procedural votes left to come — a South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-Moon, who has been deeply immersed for years in the appeasement-driven approach with which South Korea and its allies have failed utterly to stop North Korea’s rogue nuclear bomb and missile program.

And less than 24 hours after Ban clinches the backing he needs to win the keys to the UN executive suite, North Korea announces plans to conduct a nuclear test. Can we connect the dots?

For media inquiries, please contact [email protected] Claudia Rosett is widely recognized as a ground-breaking reporter on corruption at the United Nations. Her investigative reporting skills, drawn from three decades as a journalist covering international affairs, led her to expose the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, the worst financial fraud in the history of humanitarian relief. Ms. Rosett worked from 1984-2002 as a staff editorialist, editor and reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared before six U.S. House and Senate Committees and Subcommittees to testify on subjects including U.N.-related corruption and the Iran-North Korea strategic alliance. Her work on Oil-for-Food earned Claudia the 2005 Eric Breindel Award and the Mightier Pen award, and for her on-site coverage of China's Tiananmen Square in 1989, she won an Overseas Press Club Citation for Excellence. She is a Foreign Policy Fellow with the Independent Women's Forum, and writes a column on foreign affairs for Forbes.com.