Text 3: Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat and the seventh and former Secretary-General of the United Nations.

1. Annan was born to Henry Reginald and Victoria Annan on April 8, 1938, in the Kofandros section of Kumasi, Ghana. As with most Akan names, his name indicates his birthday and place in his family: Kofi indicates a boy born on a Friday, and Annan denotes that he was the fourth child of his family. Annan was a twin, an occurrence that is regarded as special in Ghanaian culture; his twin sister Efua Atta died in 1991. Atta means twin in Fante.

2. Annan's family was part of the country's elite; both of his grandfathers and his uncle were tribal chiefs. His father was half Asante and half Fante; his mother was Fante. Annan's father worked for a long period as an export manager for the Lever Brothers cocoa company.

3. Annan is married to Nane Maria Annan, a Swedish lawyer and artist who is the half-niece of Raoul Wallenberg. Of their three children, Kojo Annan and Ama Annan are from Kofi Annan's previous marriage with Titi Alakija. They divorced in the late 1970s. Their third child, Nina Cronstedt de Groot, is from a previous marriage of Nane Annan. Kojo Annan was in the headlines in 2005 because of his involvement in the Oil for Food program scandal.

4. From 1954 to 1957, Annan attended the elite Mfantsipim School, a Methodist boarding school in Cape Coast founded in the 1870s. Annan has said that the school taught him "that suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere". In 1957, the year Annan graduated from Mfantsipim, Ghana became the first British colony in Sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence.

5. In 1958, Annan began studying for a degree in economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology, now the University of Science and Technology. He received a Ford Foundation grant, enabling him to complete his undergraduate studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States in 1961. Annan then studied at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961–62, later attending the MIT Sloan School of Management (1971–72) as a Sloan Fellow and receiving a Master of Science degree in management with a minor in poetry. Annan is fluent in English, French, Fante and other dialects of Akan, and other African languages.

6. Annan started working for the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations, in 1962. From 1974 to 1976, Annan worked as the Director of Tourism in Ghana. Following that, he returned to work for the United Nations as an Assistant Secretary-General In October 1995 he was made a Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the former Yugoslavia, serving for five months in this capacity and returning to his duties as Undersecretary-General in April 1996.

7. On December 13, 1996, Annan was selected by the UN Security Council to be Secretary-General and was confirmed four days later by the General Assembly. Annan took the oath of office without delay, starting his first term as Secretary-General on January 1, 1997. Annan replaced outgoing Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, becoming the first person from a black African nation to become Secretary-General.

8. Annan's Secretary-Generalship was renewed on January 1, 2002, an unusual deviation from informal policy. The office usually rotates around the continents, with two terms each; since Annan's predecessor Ghali was also an African, normally Annan would have only served one term. However, in this case Annan was able to secure reappointment.

9. In April 2001, the Secretary-General issued a five-point "Call to Action" to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Annan sees this epidemic as his "personal priority" as Secretary-General and in life in general. He proposed the establishment of a Global AIDS and Health Fund to stimulate increased spending needed to help developing countries confront the HIV/AIDS crisis.

10. On December 10, 2001, Annan and the United Nations jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world".

11. Annan was Secretary-General during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and called for the United States and the United Kingdom not to invade without UN support. In 2004 Annan called the invasion and occupation illegal.

12. Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean diplomat succeeded Kofi Annan on January 1, 2007.

• Read the quotations of and about Kofi Annan. Give your comments.

Quotations of Kofi Annan

1. "More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations." - December 31, 1999, message for the new millennium

2. "You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done." - February 24, 1998, regarding the use of force to gain compliance from Saddam Hussein

3. "Well, the issue of a standing UN army has been raised by many because, quite frankly, the way we operate today is like telling Ottawa that I know you need a fire station but we will build one when the fire breaks. We have no army. When the crisis breaks then we begin to put an army together. We go around to governments and begin asking for troops. The question with a standing UN army is that it raises issues of budget issues, legal issues, where do you place it, under what jurisdiction? And the big boys, big countries don't want it. The smaller countries are also nervous."

4. "He is very calm - very, very calm. Never raises his voice. Well-informed, contrary to the sense outside that he is ill-informed and isolated. And decisive." (February 24, 1998 press conference regarding Saddam Hussein )

5. "The greatest moment of the race is not the touch of the wall, or when one swimmer begins to pull ahead of the pack. The greatest moment takes place before the pistol even fires; when for a brief time, no nation is greater or smaller, stronger or weaker than any other. For me, that is the Olympic moment." Olympics 2004 - Celebrate Humanity 2004 campaign.

Quotations about Kofi Annan

6. We not only have confidence in him, we support him fully. He is in a very difficult job under very difficult circumstances, but we continue to have hope that he is doing his best. We only want his senior management to exhibit the transparency and accountability that he has proscribed for the organization. Rosemarie Waters, president of the United Nations Staff Union

7. We in Europe hold Kofi Annan in high esteem and recognise his unstinting efforts in the cause of peace and democracy. Jacques Chirac

8. We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary-general. We have worked well with him in the past and look forward to working with him for some time in the future. United States ambassador John Danforth

Text 4: UN head's son 'traded on his father's name'? Report will clear the secretary-general of wrongdoing over the Iraq oil-for-food plan Mark Townsend and Ned Temko (Sunday September 4, 2005) The Observer

1. The son of Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, tried several times to trade on his father's reputation, a damaging report into the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq will reveal this week. However, sources who have seen the 1,000-page study said there would be no new 'smoking-gun' revelations or accusations of impropriety against the UN leader. Instead, it will show how Kojo Annan, 31, tried to take advantage of his family connections. One example concerns Kojo's attempt to get a discount on a car purchase in Ghana.

2. However the long-awaited report by the independent commission set up to investigate the scandal-ridden oil-for-food programme will criticise the UN leader for a series of management failures. The inquiry, set up by Annan and headed by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, will allege a culture of mismanagement, lack of oversight and incompetence throughout the body. The secretary-general and his Security Council committee, which ultimate controlled the scheme, are among those under fire.

3. Volcker investigated allegations concerning Kofi Annan and his dealings with a Swiss company, Cotecna, which paid his son as an adviser and won a contract in the oil-for-food programme Although the report, to be published on Wednesday, clears the UN chief of improper behaviour over Cotecna, the broad criticism over the handling of the world's biggest humanitarian scheme will raise fresh questions over his future. To make matters worse, its publication will be on the eve of a world summit at the UN's headquarters in New York to mark its 60th anniversary. Annan tried to pre-empt the study's impact by unveiling reform proposals of his own as the scale of the oil-for-food scandal became clear. But critics, particularly in Washington, claim they do not go far enough.

4. The United States' new ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has signalled his determination to scupper Annan's reforms by objecting to proposed UN commitments on aid to developing countries, combating global warming and nuclear disarmament. Running to more than 1,000 pages and based on a study of more than 11 million documents and emails, Volcker's report is the result of a year's investigation by a three-man committee.

5. A source familiar with the committee's findings told The Observer that, while it would deliver the 'final word' on the political side of the oil-for-food failings, there would be further bad news for the UN next month, in a separate report on the 4,500 private companies 'involved either in purchasing oil or supplying goods'. 'Adverse findings' notices had already gone out to 'up to 2,500 corporations around the world' that the committee suspects of violating Iraq sanctions or otherwise behaving improperly, the source said. Notices had also gone out to 'about a dozen individuals', including Kofi Annan, whom the committee intended to criticise. The secretary-general was told the report would include 'additional evidence and conclusions' about his role in the programme.

6. A senior UN source confirmed that the report had rejected the most serious accusation - that he attempted to influence business for his son. 'Essentially there is more evidence that Kojo traded on his father's name. This is ultimately a report about the fact that the management of the UN is unmodernised,' he said.

7. After an interim report last March, the secretary-general claimed he had 'been exonerated' by Volcker, who was unable to prove that he knew Cotecna had bid for the contract before it was awarded. However, in June Cotecna released an emailed letter suggesting that its former executives and Annan did discuss the contract ahead of its being awarded. Even so, Volcker will clear Annan of improper dealings.

8. Instead, top UN officials are braced for a 'detailed and comprehensive' indictment of the entire programme. 'I'm sure there are going to be some nasty stories of venal, stupid behaviour - maybe not of corruption in the billions, but a lot of bad stuff,' one said. In a sign of a dramatic change in tone, the official said all the UN's top figures recognised that the oil-for-food scheme went badly wrong 'from the start'. The secretary-general's office, he said, knew that 'we did lots of very bad things'.

9. But the scandal had uncovered a larger, systemic UN problem which Annan hoped would help bring consensus on proposals for reform. 'This was an organisation set up to do diplomacy, but, as oil-for-food epitomised, got into managing and spending millions and millions of dollars without being equipped to do so properly,' the source close to Annan said. The programme - set up in 1995 to provide humanitarian supplies to Iraq during sanction - was subverted by Saddam Hussein who took bribes from firms involved.