Professor John Langmore, speaking ex-cathedra, views Kofi Annan’s stewardship of the UN as almost flawless. Before we start erecting a statue honoring Mr Annan we might ask the residents of Rwanda what they think of Kofi Annan.

Kofi Annan's period with the UN was when it started to look more and more like the League of Nations. By aligning itself with the left-liberal section of western public opinion, it isolated itself from countries like the US that realised that they were involved in World War III and had to defend themselves. Apologists for the UN should think for a moment whether there is any prospect that the UN would ever come to the assistance of Australia if it were to be deluged with refugees, subjected to a terrorist attack from the muslim world, or faced with any other threat to its security.

In a world that can be expected to have a population of 10 billion by 2050, threatened with crises ranging from oil to water, with an ever increasing gap between the rich and poor worlds, the UN will need to be re-invented if it is to have a part to play.

Right or wrong, there is a bit of a cloud hanging over Mr Annan in some hidden quarters.

It seems his wife (Nane) is a member of the Wallenberg empire and is closely associated (if not by blood then certainly by business) with the House of Rothschild - which is enough to set some conspiratorial dogs barking.

This is a bit of a shame because Nane is a fine humanitarian in her own right and deserving of more recognition.

I think Kofi's biggest mistake was over Rwanda as well as the more recent family financial allegations.

However his real blunder was being appointed in an era when the USA was doing its best to undermine and discredit the UN for its own purposes so he didn't really have much of a chance.

187 countries moved to punish 5 countries who hold permanent seats on the security council lead by the anti-western/anti-American group.
The USA chose to align itself with the democracies of NATO rather than bang heads with the pouters and have every decision needed watered down and made ineffectual to accommodate those countries that have ridden on the coattails of the leading industrial nations since WWII.
Kofi Anan did the best he could, no doubt, but any critical observance of the current make up of the U.N. and it's direction leads one to suspect that the worlds major superpower, the USA, will be turning to the NATO countries for assistance more and more and NOT the U.N.
The pendulum has swung. Those largest contributors to world aid and world monetary fund are demanding more than sloth as usual. Nations in need have to make concessions to trade, human rights and democracy. In this regard Kofi was a failure. The U.N. has failed. And what was once a repository of the worlds brightest and best is now but a forum for exerting influence by countries who have no interest in world development or world peace or a world growing beyond their current fixation on retribution for age old sins.
The world is in dire need of true leadership.

I'm not even going to bother and try to read such rubbish by this author. The U.N. of today is dominated by Russia, France and China. All nations known for selling weapons to any nation that they know is against them in the present.

Kofi Annan is in my mind, nothing but a coward.

Whenever he visited Australia, he visited certain political lobby groups who do not represent those they claim then to, then sets off to see the Prime Miniter without even raising the issues only to fire off a speech against Australia just before he hides on a plane or just after he arrives in the next country.

Such is the life of a coward.

USA was doing its best to undermine and discredit the UN for its own purposes

One long established purpose of the USA was to fund the lions share of the UN budget for decades. This would not have been a problem if the European nations were to ever pay back their post WWII loans as American taxpayers wouldn't have had to pay taxes for 10 years if the loans were repaid. In return America had to experience obfuscation, contempt, duplicity, corruption, pestilence, organised crime, cowardice, genocide and stupidity by UN officials and its policies.

How many benefactors would have been so patient?

Americans are sick and tired of funding international good works and being demonised at every turn. Isolationism is often talked about by the common folk.

But good news is on the horizon as the USD is falling and being threatened as a world currency, additionally, the USA is over spending on policing a foreign neighborhood so inflation looms again. Soon all the detractors may sleep soundly at night when France (dream on), Greece, Canada, Russia or China step up to fill the void.

They will certainly have the requisite integrity and intelligence for negotiating with Iran and North Korea. After all they don't have cowboys.