Will faithful New York Times readers ask why?

Will faithful New York Times readers ask themselves why, as of December 30, the Times has said nothing for months about a major international news story: U. N. secretary general Kofi Annan and his son Kojo's purchase, with financial aid from an executive involved in the oil-for-food scandal, of a Mercedes-Benz which has since disappeared?

While the NY Times is silent, other news organizations are reporting the story and providing commentary. See, for example, The New York Sun, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, and Times of London.

Here's part of what Jordan's former representative at the U. N., Ambassador Hasan Abu Nimah, wrote for the Jordan Times:

Last week, CNN showed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a harsh exchange with UN correspondents at a year-end press conference.
...
Annan began the press conference in a jovial mood, offering advice to his successor, saying "he should be thick skinned and should have a sense of humour".

But things turned sour quickly when the London Times correspondent, James Bone, asked Annan what had happened to a Mercedes car which Annan's scandal-plagued son Kojo had imported into Ghana using his father's diplomatic privileges.

The report by Paul Volcker into UN corruption stated that Kojo bought the car using his father's name, avoiding hefty duties and obtaining a special discount available only to UN employees.

Annan lashed out angrily at the question. "Wait a minute, I smell something cheeky here," he said before scolding: "Listen James Bone, you've been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving and please let's move on to a serious journalist."
...
When the CNN programme was shown again last Sunday, as an introduction this time to a panel which debated the confrontation, Annan appeared in the programme commenting on the Mercedes affair by saying that the matter was being investigated by his son's lawyer and anyone who wanted further information could go straight to the lawyer or the son, adding he was not his son's lawyer or his "box man".

(This) kind of evasiveness suggests that Annan is not keen to answer questions no matter how respectfully they are posed.

Regarding the purchase, Ambassador Nimah says:

Under no circumstances could Annan's son order a car under his father's name and diplomatic privilege without his father's consent and signature. He could not ship the car anywhere without the same signature and the same consent, no doubt an operation requiring a great deal of documentation. Even if Kojo was able to obtain such paperwork from the UN bureaucracy without his father's knowledge, his father still remains accountable for a shocking lack of oversight, and Annan should insist on an internal investigation to find out how such a thing could possibly have happened without his knowledge, if that was the case.

If duties or taxes were avoided in the transaction, they ought to be refunded and the responsibility for that lies ultimately with Annan himself.

The Ambassador had much more to say. You can read it all here.

I can't help thinking about the news coverage and editorializing the New York Times would now be providing its readers if the Mercedes purchase involved Vice-president Cheney and his daughter instead Nobel laureate and U. N. secretary general Annan and his son.

Surely, the Times can't be serious when it claims to report the news "without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interest involved."

I'll soon have more to report.

As always, your comments are welcome.

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