Poor baby!

Polipundit points us to a really sad story - Annan Tells Staff of His 'Pain' from UN Inquiries. (Too bad Bubba Clinton wasn't around to feel it for him.)

"To see the institution you have devoted your life to being hammered and attacked, in most cases unfairly, was very difficult to digest, and I can imagine what impact it had on you and on staff morale," he said.

Tell it to the kids in Rwanda, Kofi. And the kids in Timor, the Congo, Kosovo and just about everywhere else the UN has been.

"It is also unfortunate that my own son seems to have been associated somehow with this program, and of course that investigation is going on," Annan added.

Somehow? I guess he was just ambling down the street and all of sudden, folks started stuffing money in his pockets. That happens a lot at the UN.

Speaking of money and the UN, check out Indonesia denies tsunami aid paid for posh ambassador villa in Geneva:

Indonesia on Monday denied allegations in a Swiss newspaper that tsunami relief funds were diverted to purchase a swanky resident for its ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

I wonder where their ambassador to the UN in New York lives?

"The report insinuates that we are using disaster aid funding for the purchase of the residence and this is not at all the case," Thamrin told AFP.

Le Matin said that the purchase of the 9.6-million-franc (US$8.1 million) villa in the swish Collonge-Bellerive district overlooking Lake Geneva was inappropriate while many in Indonesia, where 220,000 are dead and missing after the tsunami, still needed help.

But Thamrin said the purchase of the villa had already been agreed by the finance minister on October 12 and the contract was signed shortly after - more than two months before the December 25 tsunami.

The government had provided the funds in its 2005 state budget, he said, adding that the purchase of the villa would be a long-run saving against costly rents, and would also be an investment for Indonesia.

Dang those pesky rents! They also seem to be a tad unclear on the concept of fungibility.

Ambassador Makarim Wibisono, 58, who is also current president of the UN Human Rights Commission, was scheduled to move into the Provence-style villa with his wife and three children in the coming weeks.

They will enjoy a large verandah overlooking a swimming pool, an immense park including a house for the domestic servants, hot-houses, and a volley-ball court, Le Matin said.

Sometimes when you're at the UN working for human rights, you just have to make sacrifices.