PAJAMAS ALERT - OIL FOR FOOD

IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM THE AP:

UNITED NATIONS_Investigators of the U.N. oil-for-food program said Tuesday they are “urgently reviewing” new information suggesting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known more about a contract awarded to the company that employed his son.

The December 1998 memo from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna Inspections S.A., mentions brief discussions with Annan “and his entourage” during a summit in Paris in late 1998. “We could count on their support,” the memo said.

If accurate, the memo could contradict a major finding of the Independent Inquiry Committee _ that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son Kojo, to win a contract under oil-for-food. Cotecna learned it won the contract on Dec. 11, 1998.

The statement from the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, said it would “conduct additional investigation regarding this new information.”